Allies
by Moon Witch '96
Summary: Drabble. A story told in bits and pieces about a certain Miko and a Demon Lord, and how they fight to protect what is their's... AU, and maybe a bit OC. Please read and review.
1. Introduction

**Introduction**

It had been... Interesting to say the least. Some part of her must have snapped, though she was the most cooperative to say the least for his group to join their merry little band, Kagome was not ready to let anything happen to the people she thought to be family. She had exploded with threats for her to call upon the greater powers to fry his white and demon ass if he even dared to do something to harm anyone she considered to be of serious value to her. Fortunately for her, it had been long after he has acquired his lovely little Ward, Rin, and he had become much more docile and mellow, at least, that was what Inuyasha had said to her the day they had become official allies, and he had been properly been introduced to her, without him screaming "Die Inuyasha!" at least. Over all, when he had barely reacted to her very colorful threat, that not only consisted of words in their native tongue but as well as any spare swear word and threat in any of the various languages she had picked up in her foreign phase as a middle schooler... Well, she had to admit when as his perfectly shaped eyebrow merely arched at her somewhat brash display, and then replied that he would do the same to her should she dare harm any of those under his protection... She had relaxed into Miroku and Sango's restricting arms, and had given the demon lord a smile. Which had raised the other brow, on his otherwise emotionless face. Kagome had let out a giggle, and said in a somewhat cheerful voice:

"So we understand each other?"

Sesshomaru had simply let his brows drop down, making his face a cold mask once again, though if Kagome had been surprised to see a somewhat challenging shine to his golden eyes as he had turned around, a orange kimono clad child skipping behind him. Kagome had barely heard the soft whispered:

"Hai."

That must have slipped past his lips... Which had only caused Kagome to smile even wider, and Inuyasha's brow to twitch in annoyance and he had huffed a 'shit' in the background. His eyes, so similar to his brother's in it's golden hue, had glared at nothing and his ears had flatted on his head. He had then muttered a why? To his brother, who had replied: She made her claim first. Which had only brought yet another curse from her fire-rat clad friend. Interesting, to say the least.

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**AN: Don't own Inuyasha, it belongs to its wonderful authoress and its respected publishers.**

**Theme: Introduction.**

**Why: I'm bored and just happen to need time to kill, though I should be writing my other things... Well, I really am bored... Hundred themes challenge.**


	2. Complicated

**Complicated**

Kagome hands twitched, and her breath was stolen from her as her hands raised her bow in the usual place. Her weak control slipped and she felt the power that usually hummed just beneath her skin, held back by the simple and utterly newly taught seal, break said seal and explode around her with a sharp taste of purity raising rapidly through the air like a wild fire. Around her, several of the swarming demons evaporated with the backlash, and she huffed as their baboon pelt leader laughed at jeered at her display of control, before several more replaced the ones she had purified. She was pleased to note that they hesitated, and she used that moment to gather once again her power and repeat the processes. But she felt completely exhausted, and though she knew she could keep it up for a while her power would so much as spark again after a couple of these bursts, unless she was shifted enough emotionally to cause an upheaval of power, which she knew was rare to happen...

Her strangely gray eyes turned to the cause to her lapse in control, and she glared at the somewhat terrifying sight in front of her. His aura floated around her like a heavy cloud, thick and full of poison like the one that was leaking from his claws. Not a hair was out of place, as as always his expression was blank as his poison whip danced around him to kill, and his own feet dancing along with his whip in a savage, yet graceful dance. Her lips twitched downwards in annoyance.

If this was how Sesshomaru usually fought, then she was in trouble. It had taken her these two years of continuous fighting to get this much control of her powers, and with just his aura, Sesshomaru had ruined that without even effort. She let out a huff of annoyance, turning away from the demon lord and back on her own quite literal demons. She didn't notice golden eyes observe her as she let out yet another burst of power, and widen as they felt her purity sweep over their pale skin like a kissing breeze, only that this kiss was burning and really stinging to his person. Inwardly he cursed, feeling his aura rise at the challenged to defend itself against the rather steely taste of purity in the air, outwardly he simply continued his rather mundane task. He couldn't help but think as he observed his brother's miko, that things would get complicated if she always lost control of her rather... Potent powers in his presence. This Sesshomaru didn't know that at that moment, the time-traveling miko was thinking the very same thing. Complicated indeed.


	3. Making History

**Making History**

"Okay, that is just plain weird..." muttered Kagome as she watched the very strange scene play out before her.

Inuyasha to her right snorted and munched happily on his ninja food, or otherwise known as potato chips.

"It must be normal, I mean, he isn't killing the brat, is he?" grumbled her companion.

Kagome just stared before she raised a delicate brow.

"I have a feeling somewhere, high up in the sky, your father is laughing his inu-butt off." she said dryly.

Inuyasha gave out a gruff laugh, choking on his snack as he tired to hold in the laughter that was causing his ribs to ache. Of course, when the cold bastard turned to glare at the pair of them coldly, Inuyasha couldn't help but laugh even harder, because well, the Demon Lord just looked plain ridiculous with the pink flowers weaved through his hair, and didn't at all make him intimidating. The small girl besides the Lord sang loudly as she put even more flowers into his hair. When a particularity lovely flower was put on the very top of the rest, Rin declared herself done. She misread the laughter for approval, and beamed at her oversized and deadly doll substitute.

Kagome herself just barely managed to hold in her giggles, and couldn't help but think, that it was very sweet that the Demon Lord didn't immediately rip out the flowers, like she was sure he would have. Instead, he just stalked off and leaned into a tree. If Kagome didn't know any better, she would have figured he had went off to sulk... It was then that Rin ran up to Inuyasha, flowers in hand that she saw a slight light of victory in Sesshomaru's eyes. She giggled harder and muttered a sit, and watched Inuyasha receive a flower crown as well, though she did see that it wasn't a beautiful as the Demon Lord's... Which in turn made her laugh outright, tears running down her face as she shot Sesshomaru a thumbs up. When he returned her gesture, ability with an raised eyebrow Kagome paused, and she grinned. They were making history for sure if they had managed to get a flower crowned _**Sesshomaru **_to give up a thumbs up. The thought only made her giggle harder, and she fell onto the field of flowers, not noting that the Demon Lord was glancing at his hand as if it had betrayed him in some form or another.


	4. Rivalry

**Rivalry**

"West." said a clam baritone.

"EAST!" snarled out a rough voice.

"West."

The clang of Japanese steel rang through the air, and Kagome sighed. She glanced at the fighting brothers with another sigh. It had all started with a simple thing. Deciding which road to take, and the two Inu brothers had taken it as a way to duke out the tension that had been rising between them for the past few weeks... Judging by the way all she saw was two red, white blurs and dust with the odd appearance of a fist or foot, and the random insults and jeers, Kagome found it best to simply leave the two brothers be. Her feet where tired anyway.

That was what she resovled to do, until Shippo got caught in the fray, and with a horrified gasp, Kagome jumped to her aching feet and ran at the big tumbling blurs that consisted of _**her**_ kit, and the two brothers. When she found no entrance, Kagome huffed, and screamed out shrilly:

"SIT BOY!"

Inuyasha's blur came to a screeching halt, and he fell forward with a shit and a few other curses that Kagome felt best not to say a loud. Ever. He looked at her, golden eyes glaring, until he saw an injured Shippo limp into arms, sniffing. His ears fell flat and she glared with righteous fury in her gray eyes.

"I do care about your sibling _**rivalry**_! In fact that is the least important thing right now... What I care about is when you drag other people into it! DON'T DO IT AGAIN! AND YOU!" Suddenly Kagome turned to a somehow impossibly unruffled Sesshomaru.

He blinked at her, and she poked him in the chest.

"YOU SHOULD KNOW BETTER THAN TO LET IT CONTINUE AFTER YOU FEEL ANOTHER AURA IN THE FRAY!" with another poke to the chest, not even caring that she might die after her little fit, Kagome stomped away.

Both Inuyasha and Sesshomaru looked after the wayward miko, and looked at each other, glaring. Their blades slide out once again, and they lunged at each other. Kagome, they reasoned had said to be careful of other people being caught into the battle. She hadn't said to stop their battle after all, and they still had to deiced whether to go west or east.

"West."

"EAST!"

"West."


	5. Unbreakable

**Unbreakable**

Kagome looked steadily into golden eyes, her own gray eyes never wavering, and her lips pulled into a frown of concentration. Sweat formed on both their brows as they gazed at each other, and they both knew that looking away from each other would cause great distress. So they gazed at each other, never blinking. Then, when the golden eyes _**did**_ blinked, Kagome smiled hugely. She fist pumped and whooped, dancing away from the swearing fire rat clad Inuyasha.

"To the village it is!" sang out Miroku, clasping his hands together in gratitude.

Inuyasha just let out another swear, and Sango and Shippo let out breaths of relief. Kagome on the other hand just continued her fist pumping, glad to be going home, until a shadow loomed over her, and she felt _**his **_aura come over her. Her hands stopped, and she looked up to see a completely different set of golden eyes regarding her coolly. Part of Kagome started to sweat, the other just lifted their chin eyes showing a bravado that she knew she couldn't really back up. When a single white brow lifted, Kagome felt compelled to explain.

"It's a village where we frequently rest and gather supplies." she said with a quick bow of her head, just to be safe.

Sesshomaru just lowered his brow, and continued to look at Kagome. A thought occurred to her, and she barely managed to not groan in horror. When a clawed hand came upon her shoulder, and Kagome looked back to see Inuyasha's glittering eyes. He had thought that to, and this time she really did groan.

"Oi! We can't take Sesshomaru to the village, he'll kill everyone who annoys him, which means everyone... We should just spend a little time more away from the village..." spooke Inuyasha, a fang prominent in his rather shit eating grin.

Sesshomaru lifted a brow, and looked at the distressed Miko, and noticed how she seemed rather distressed... Maybe this village was her home? Inwardly, he frowned, and noticed that his brother looked rather_** to**_ pleased to his liking at the prospect of not going to the Miko's village. With an inward smirk, he deiced what to do.

"This Sesshomaru shall not harm a fly in the village."

Everyone blinked at him, and Inuyasha let out another swear through his gaping mouth. Kagome on the other hand beamed, gray eyes sparkling with mirth, and her directed to cold golden eyes. Both knew that his vow was unbreakable.


	6. Obsession

**Obsession**

It was the way she was. The way she talked. They way her gray eyes would look head on to his own even when he could see that she was terrified. It was strange... He had never really seen a person like her before. She was brash. She was almost wild compared to the rather demure females of her species, as even the warrior female that was in their group was rather calm and _**respectful**_. Not her. Not the Miko. She was strange, and she unlike any other being he had come across... And it intrigued him. _**HIM! **_It was a wonder, that the little Miko who was walking ahead of him, her hips swaying to a delicate and not quite bold beat could bring out an obsession in him. This Sesshomaru was not pleased. Not at all. Yet, somehow, his golden eyes couldn't look away.


	7. Eternity

**Eternity**

She hummed under her breath, an somehow unknown tune that was quick and lively, in which she snapped her delicate fingers and moved her hips in tune with the her hums and snaps... And he looked on at her without her knowledge or emotion on his own... At least his face didn't have emotion that is... But inside he was an endless ocean, tormented by storms of emotions concerning just what the little Miko's movement.. It was then that the girl looked back at him, freezing, her eyes wide. Her odd gray orbs stretched for an eternity and he felt something in his chest twinge at the look of embarrassment glowing there. Her face was flush, and she turned pointy around, posture and gait stiff. Again, for some strange reason, this displeased Seesshomaru...

It was then that he felt the aura of menace, and it was then that all hell broke loss upon them. And it was then that Sesshomaru slashed through demon after demon rapidly just to look at the gray eternity once again, his heart beating like a constant drum in his chest.


	8. Gateway

**Gateway**

Kagome's lips twitched in slight horrified amusement and as she shifted her gray eyes once again to look down upon the rather large yellow bag in front of her. They weren't anymore left. Lucky her...She looked around her at the rather familiar village hut, and was ever so grateful that, even though Inuyasha had yet again gotten hurt, everyone else had made it more or less in one piece. But... Well, they had gathered an array of cuts and bruises, and her she was without essentials from her first aid kit. She smiled. That would mean a trip to her own time, and Kagome had to restrain the urge to fist pump and whoop. She was sure her Mama missed her, she had been gone for over four weeks...

"No." growled Inuyasha behind her, chest dripping with blood as Kaede pushed him down with a roll of her eye.

Kagome merely gave him a smile, before she partially skipped to the entrance of the hut, bag at hand.

"Soorry Inuyasha, but remember our deal, your hurt, and I'm out of medicine then I get to go home!" she just about sang that out to him, before giving him a smug little wave.

His growls and swears could be heard across the village as the Miko laughed out loud, really skipping as she swung her bag around. The villagers all bowed or waved in respect to her as she went, and a weary Sango, who was tending to her armor gave her a smile, before turning around to smack a wandering hand away, and then the face of the hand's owner, who with a winced and bowed to Kagome as she went her merry way. Shippo skipped across her path with Rin in tow, several of the village children tagging along and crying out "Kagome, Kagome!" as she passed, some nodding to her with toothless grins and others just giving her a cheerful wave. A exhausted green imp jogged after them, muttering about human children as he went. Kagome simply grinned at everyone, feeling a little childish and deciding to race to the well, both in a bout of playfulness and need, because she knew Inuyasha wouldn't hesitate to drag her back to the hut, even in his condition.

So she was off, and she raced down the familiar path and woods to her well. She reached the meadow breathless and slightly sweating, not really caring as she walked up to the well, swinging her pack onto her pack. She then slipped onto the lip of the well, and was ready to slip through time when she felt a steady pulse of an aura behind her. Suppressing a sigh, she turned to face the emotionless Demon Lord who was as usual giving her a cold stare.

"Hello Sesshomaru-sama." she said with a bow of her head.

He raised a brow.

"The fall will kill you." he said with no emotion whatsoever.

Kagome snorted.

"It won't."

"Miko, I am quite positive that it will."

Kagome sighed slumping down to give him a steady glance. Then, she perked up, giving the Demon Lord a bright smile.

"Do you want to know why it won't kill me?"

Sesshomaru stayed silent, and since he didn't move, Kagome took it as a sign to continue.

"It's a gateway, I suppose... A gateway to my own time." she mused.

He didn't say a word to her rather crazy and completely true words, which Kagome expected. She smiled at him.

"Well, I guess you won't believe me... But, well, I really can't explain it very well... Goodbye Sesshomaru-sama!"

Without another word Kagome slipped into her way home, and for the oddest reason, she had the urge to look upwards, and she saw a pair of slightly widen golden eyes staring at her. Kagome couldn't help but laugh at his somewhat emotional reaction, and she gave those eyes a cheeky wave, and saw them disappear with the customary shine of light.

Sesshomaru himself couldn't help but stare at where the little Miko had gone to die, and blinked as he saw her disappear in a pulse of some unknown power and glittering blue light. Her laughter echoed in the walls of the know empty well, and full of curiosity, he jumped after her and waited to be taken to her... Own time as she had said... He frowned when he found himself at the bottom of the well, where no pulse of power nor light had graced him. It was then that he discovered that the gateway to her own time must only work for the Miko. For some reason, that irked him.


	9. Death

**Death**

When Kagome looked up to see the familiar roof of the well house, she was greet by the sight of a sleeping Souta, whose face was blotchy and had dried tear tracks. And her heart froze, and her body did as well for just the briefest second so full on panic could consume her, before she leaped into action, climbing the ladder so quickly that she seemed to have flown out of the well. As gently as she could in her panic, she shook her little brother. He opened his dark eyes slowly, then he jumped back in shock. He looked at her with those wide dark eyes of his, which slipped over with tears as he hugged her around the waist.

"...Dead... He's... Dead..." hiccuped her brother into her chest.

Once again, Kagome felt her heart freeze. She had been dreading this... Her grandfather had been in bad health the last time she had left, and she had only ever left with Inuyasha because he had told her not to forget her responsibilities... But... Kagome let out a sob, tears coming to her eyes... She had been responsible all right, and because of that she hadn't seen her grandfather off. She sobbed louder.

"We... Have to find him... I know you can do it Kagome..." whispered her brother after a moment.

Kagome blinked at Souta tone and looked at her little brother with sheer confusion.

"But... I _**can't **_find him..." she whispered miserably.

Her brother shook his head rapidly.

"If anyone can, I _**know **_you can Kagome! Use your weird powers!"

Kagome felt her heart go out to her brother, and she smiled at him ruefully.

"They don't work that way Souta."

He looked at her with anger burning in his eyes.

"I know you can! How can you not find one stinking cat spirit ?" he snapped at her.

Kagome froze. _Buyo? It was about __**Buyo**__?! Her cat was dead? Oh!_

She fell to the ground with a little hysterical laughter and she lifted her hands to her face. Leaning backwards onto the well, Kagome let out a sigh of sadness. She was going to miss that cat...


	10. Opportunities

**Opportunities**

When the little Miko finally came back from her own time, her gray eyes were clouded and without much happiness. She all but shoved her large yellow back into Inuyasha's injured self. This Sesshomaru only just resisted the urge to snort at the rather uncaring act of the Miko... And he smiled inwardly at her rather depressed demeanor... Because it left her guard down... And though his more tame side felt a little unsure of what to do with the Miko, his inner beast and predator was rejoicing at the number of opportunities the Miko now presented.

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**AN: Okay, I do not own Inuyasha... If I did I would have made the anime much more actuate and make Kikyo actually loook like Kagome... Just saying...**

**Er, I meant to update everyday, but the last four days or so have been a little crazy... BUT I have them there now XD. Next theme: 33%**


	11. 33

**33%**

_Thirty Three percent_... That was about how much time estimated that she spent in her own time... It was a generous estimation, and Kagome knew that her lack of skills at math were coming into play to make it but... It was a pretty pitiful amount. She sat at the lip of well, with a frown on her face, gazing into the depths of her gateway from this time to her own for the past two years... She had already swathed and bond Inuyasha to her best ability, and she had hightailed it back to the well, trying to make a decision...

Should she stay or should she go? Once upon a time, or really in the earlier days she had deiced that she would stay forever by Inuyasha's side, and that meant, she knew, to stay on this side of time and forget her life in five hundred years... But could she really do that? She wasn't in love with Inuyasha any longer, she knew that much... She did love them all in sense, her companions, as brothers and sisters and as a son in one case, but was that really enough? Could that bind her to this time more than the pull of her own blood that lay just one leap away? She frowned deeper, a sigh coming onto her lips as she looked around to the meadow that would one day be part of her family shrine...

No. It echoed through her head with a such a note of honesty that it made Kagome want to cry. She loved them all so much, but she couldn't have them... Not all of them... Buyo's death had told Kagome that she was tired of missing what should have been her everyday life in Tokyo. She was tired of losing people, of losing herself in the torrent of demon after demon, of the guilt for making this whole mess begin... She just wanted to be herself, she just wanted to live her days with her loved ones... But she wasn't sure, even after her decision, which ones where loved more... But it struck her suddenly that she _**wasn't**_ suppose to be here either. All the people in this time, were gone in her's. They weren't ever meant for her to keep, no matter how desperately she wanted to... Life really did suck.

_Thirty three percent_...

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**AN: Doooo not own, no matter how awesome that would be...**

**Ugh... I feel terrible... I KILLED BUYO! How could I? I'm going to miss that cat ToT. Anyway, what do you guys think? Kagome is pretty much trying to understand her place in the world, and she knows it's her own time, to a degree at least. She has a right to hate that though, and she is going to... Sorry if there is no Sesshy in this chapter, it just that Kagome needs to comes to term with a few things and Sesshy might be sort of intrigued by her and a little obsessed but does have some other things to do... Like plot against Kagome... Or something like that =). Ha... Anyway, Next Theme: Dead Wrong. **


	12. Dead Wrong

**Dead Wrong**

It was weeks later in the past did Kagome finally accept the fate that had been thrust upon her by either a very smart Kami, or a very hatefull one. She didn't want it, she wanted to rage and she wanted to cry about it... And even part of her wanted to go down the path of her fate kicking and screaming... But she couldn't, she knew very well that it was what was suppose to happen. But she didn't tell anyone, knowing that it was best that they didn't know that she planned to leave them. After all, she knew that without her in their lives they would all be better off... She was dead wrong about this. All of her companions would miss her so much after she was gone, and all of her companions would never be truly happy without her. Some part of her knew this, but she just didn't want to face it, and so Kagome just took another step down the path of her fate, her companions not aware that she had deiced not to include them in it. Kagome's heart wept for them, and her shattered soul called out for them...

Only one could hear her calls, and they looked at her with cold golden eyes, wondering what on earth could be wrong with the Miko... He dismissed her call, ignoring the twinge of his own soul with the action, thinking that she was just being foolish about one thing or another. How very wrong he was.


	13. Running Away

**Running Away**

This Sesshomaru was not a coward. No, he thought as he walked backwards carefully, face calm as the raging Miko advanced on him, her gray eyes full of fire and her purity ringing through the air, breathing across his skin in a stinging kiss. No, he was not running away as most would have no, he was just simply retreating to find the best course of action... Part of him wondered why the thing she called a English textbook was so important, because when he had opened it, all he had seen was a series of strange markings, and since _**he**_ hadn't been able to read it, he had figured neither could the Miko, and he had done the little wench a favor by using it to build that night's fire, because she had complained that it was cold anyway... Which of course, turned out to be the wrong course of action, he thought as he took yet another 'retreating' step back, almost allowing himself to breath a sigh of relief as the Miko's pack held her back, where she started screaming at him from a distance. Sesshomaru merely walked into the woods, getting as much distance as he could from him and the Miko, his mind still set on the fact that he was _**not **_running away, but simply retreating...


	14. Judgement

**Judgment**

She sniffed, her small hands rubbing away the tears that had gathered in her eyes, and she coughed as he sneezed, _**sneezed**_, rubbing his nose with his hand and then turning to glare at her coolly. She merely glared back, and boldly throwing the now ruined packet at his feet, her hands twitching and just barely being able to stop them from curling into fists, which would surely get her into much more trouble. The incident with the textbook the other day had gotten her enough trouble... She knew her face was flushed and she could feel her brow twitching. She was mad. Or maybe it would be better described to being furious. He had ruined the last packet of ramen... The last one! The one that was meant for her! It didn't help the fact that she could hear Inuyasha snorting in the background chewing happily at his own food.

"Sesshomaru-sama... May I ask, why the _**hell **_did you do that?" whispered out Kagome with as much patience as she could, her eyes narrowed in her disbelieving fury.

He didn't say a word, he simply twitched his nose, before sat down against the tree. He then gave her a steady look with his golden eyes.

"Disgusting." was all he said, brows raising for a simple moment before they fell again.

Kagome twitched. Then with something of sigh, she just sat next to Inuyasha, rummaged through her bag before giving up and simply grabbing his bowl. Even though Inuyasha gave a weak protest, all Kagome had to do was give him a look before she finished off the bowl. She could feel rather than see golden eyes staring at her coolly, but Kagome couldn't really give a damn. Sesshomaru could pass whatever judgment he wanted on her food choices, and who she chose to mooch it from, after all, she was just to hungry to care...

She didn't know that the very demon of her thoughts was raising an eyebrow at his brother's rather submissive behavior, and noted that he had made a good choice at choice the Miko as the pack's leader... He had first only done it out of sheer spite towards his brother, and because the opportunity had presented itself, but know he could see that she was truly Alpha in this pack, and for some odd reason, the Demon Lord found that he approved.

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**AN: I do not own Inuyasha... *pouts***

**Next Theme: Seeking Solstice. Er, well I hope you guys like the story so far XD, I really just started writing this on a whim, and it's good way to exercise my writing skills on a daily basis... Anyway, like I said before, hope you are enjoying the story, and would you please review :3.  
**


	15. Seeking Solstice

**Seeking Solstice**

Kagome looked up to the sky, and sighed slightly as the wind whipped through her hair. If she was correct by how much time had passed since the last time she had left home, today was the summer solstice... The longest day of the year, and she felt the day sun's rays gliding against her skin, warmth filling her as she walked carefully, in front of Miroku and Sango, with Shippo jumping from shoulder to shoulder, and with Inuyasha walking moodily ahead, still mumbling about slow humans. She knew behind her little group Sesshomaru pack walked calmly behind... She savored this moment. She savored the curses of her best friend and the calm tones of the two who were sure to become lovers, and the excited squeals of the children, who she suspected, without looking back were now playing... She even savored the squawks of Jaken, the meows of Kilala, and the ever present aura of the Demon Lord... She savored it all, somehow knowing that the next time she would be seeking solstice, none of them would be by her side, so she savored the feel of the sun against her skin, the sounds and the distinctive feelings each sound made her feel. She almost wished to cry, but Kagome instead just smiled sadly, before sighing once again as another breeze swept across her skin. She looked up to the sky.


	16. Excuses

**Excuses**

Sesshomaru kept a close eye on the slightly rueful looking Miko, who chattered with her companions as if nothing distressed her, yet her soul called out to them... And it was only hear that could hear her pleas... Yet he still wished to answer it, but couldn't, because she was just a foolish wench... A insignificant human, a wild and untrained Miko... And nothing more... Or, well, those were the excuses that Sesshomaru told himself, because as much as he wanted to reach out and touch the Miko's soul with his own, to soothe its cries and pleas, he was to terrified, no, not terrified, because this Sesshomaru was never terrified, but wary, of what would happen the second his soul were to touch her's... And what it would mean to him...


	17. Vengeance

**Vengeance**

It was time... Just a slow, easy step and Kagome would be able to see it... She smiled thinly, and prepared herself for what was about to happen... She took a step, and laughed so loudly that a few birds flew from their perches in the woods, and she saw with glee that a pair of certain dog ears had flattened on the owner's head.

"Kagomee..." he growled, desperately trying to wipe off the rather spectacular amount of make up she had managed to place on him while he was asleep.

Kagome just smirked at his tone. He knew that it wouldn't come off with just water, or at least it wouldn't come off easily. Modern cosmetics just didn't work that way... She smirked again as she caught the look of her companions' faces. Miruko looked slightly applaud, and was looking at Inuyasha with a horrified look, as if he had mistaken him for a woman... Sango was chuckling along with Shippo, who was on her shoulder, Rin walked up to Inuyasha to gush how pretty he was... Jaken just croaked out laughter... Ah-uh just basked in the sun, Kilala at his side... And Sesshomaru just simply raised a brow at her. She shrugged in response, knowing that this punishment was perfect for Inuyasha, who had insulted both her and Sango by saying woman couldn't fight because they were to worried about their image... And now, as he looked like a woman, Inuyasha couldn't fight, because he would be worried about _**his **_image.

To make sure not to forget this precious moment, Kagome took out the digital camera that she had taken to carry around with her, wanting to never forget in her time, that in this era it hadn't always been about slaying demons and finding shards... It had been about friendships... About first love... And it was also something she would miss so much... With a sad smile, Kagome snapped a picture of the scene, before returning her camera to her pocket... At least she had gotten her vengeance...


	18. Love

**Love**

It was such a fickle thing... Thought Kagome as she watched Inuyasha dash off into the forest, following the sliver light that would leave him with his precious Miko. He had frozen when he caught sight of that light, and had looked pleadingly at her, touching his still makeup drenched face... She had softened, and without complaint had whipped it off with makeup remover... And Inuyasha had pecked her on the cheek, before running off... Such an act before would have almost destroyed her, but not anymore... Because love was such a fickle thing, at least the romantic love that had ever graced Kagome. The love she had felt for Inuyasha, at least in a romantic sense had left her long-... Well, she wasn't sure when it had left her. It had surprised her, and just like when she had fallen in love with him, it had been sudden and not something she had expected. One day she had discovered that she just wasn't in love with him. But she had welcomed it, and had said goodbye to her first love with a fond, yet painful smile on her face. Inuyasha had chosen his path, or more likely to say, _**her**_ path, and Kagome had chosen her's. She had no idea were her path would go, but somewhere in Kagome couldn't help but wish, that like Inuyasha she would find the person who completed her, no matter how imperfect that person was, she knew that she would love them with all that was her being... And she had no idea how close they were, sitting there with the fire and starlight dancing across their faces, kissing their brows and drenching his golden eyes in shadow as he gazed at the Miko in an unwavering gaze.


	19. Tears

**Tears**

He stared, he could not stop himself from watching her cry... It was late, or maybe the term was better coined as early, but either way he saw her tears glistening in the fire light, dropping softly onto the strange bedding she called a 'sleeping bag'. He had never understood the need to weep, nor did he ever understand a woman's need to weep. It was always a mess, if he recalled right, whenever a female cried, a lot of mucus was involved in the few times he had seen anyone cry, and it would leave them ugly and blotchy in the face... But this girl... It was different. Her face was flush, true, but not blotchy. No mucus came from her nose, no, all that indicated that she wept was the slow tears running down the Miko's cheeks. What a strange thing, for he also remembered that crying was always very audible, and irritating to his sensitive ears... But again, this girl was different. Her sorrow was quiet, quite different than the rest of her emotions... Sesshomaru just stared at the girl's face for a while longer, wondering at the fact that in the dim firelight, it looked as if the Miko was weeping tears of crystal...


	20. My Inspiration

**My Inspiration**

Kagome looked at the people that had changed her life so much, gray eyes solomn. Inuyasha had been the first, the first to be her friend, the first for her to love, and the first and only for her to be in love with... Shippo had been next. And then Miruko... Then Sango. And finally the Pack of the West... Kagome paused in surprise, wondering at the fact that the Pack of the West was included in her group of love ones... She could surely count little Rin, and even Ah-Uh. Jaken, not so much... And Sesshomaru? Now that was the question Kagome mused, turning around to walk backwards and look at the Pack of the West. They walked in a slow, easy matter as if they had no care in the world, though the most livily of the group was weaving through the legs of the Shard hunters as a whole, laughing. She smiled suddenly, filing away the thought and wondering for a moment to look around at the people that had made her the person she was and she silently thanked them all, and hoped that the would forgive her when she left them... Because, she thought with a sad smile, _Their my inspiration_.


	21. Never Again

**Never Again**

Kagome could never really describe exactly what it was about the Shikon jewel that she could sense. Kikyo, form what she had told her after they had declared their thin truce, said that it was just like a thought at the back of her mind, and that the closer she got to such a shard, the louder the thought, until she had it in her possession, where it would just whisper quietly in the back of her mind once again... It wasn't like that for Kagome. It was... It was like a humming inside her. It was like a whisper in her heart. It was like hearing in color... It was as if suddenly had stuffed her into a dark room and then suddenly had let just the faintest of light into it days later... It called to her, it sang to her, it beckoned her in a way that made her sing, or even weep as each shard came back to her... Granted, it hadn't always been that way for Kagome, in fact, what Kikyo had said before was exactly what she had felt in the beginning, but over the years it had changed into a distant ache inside her, especially now that she held so little of the shards in the sturdy and particularly unbreakable leather thong and power infused jar, which she clenched tightly in her pale fingertips, biting her lip and trying to decide just what she should do...

Because she could feel it somewhere in the distance, that large, maddening pulse that hummed in her head and whispered to her heart... Should she tell the others? Should she tell them and bring this mad, quest to an end and completely free herself from ever coming again to this era, which she held so dear? Should- Kagome jumped when she heard a soft, haunting howl echo through the moonless night, chilling her to the bone and making her look around her with a frantic gray eyes. It was then that she could see that the ever present Demon Lord was gone, and immediately Kagome knew that the howl that had sounded just moments ago was his... And it started again, the slow, with a tone that was drenched with sorrow and complete mourning. Inuyasha, sitting across the firelight, eyes purple and wary, looked in the direction of the sound, black and inky hair swirling around him in the slight breeze that had picked up.

"Don't worry Onee-san." said a soft, and sleepy voice from somewhere close to her.

Kagome looked down at the girl that was curled in her lap, looking as those dark chocolate eyes gazing at her with a sleepy, yet somehow wise light. She smiled up to her, snuggling into the crook of her neck for a second, before whispering into her eats:

"It's what he does every new moon... He's sad because its lost... When it is lost, he is sad. So don't worry, because Rin knows he has to sing to make the sad feelings go away. Yes, Rin knows." whispered the small girl in a sad tone, as if she too missed the moon, or at least felt sorry for what her guardian was going through.

Rin then feel straight asleep in her lap, face pressed into her neck. Kagome sighed, and her thoughts wander to the mourning Demon Lord. She hoped that he would get all his sad feelings go away, and she wondered as she looked up to the dark and star dotted sky, if she could also mourn, but not for the lost moon, but for her own lost self, the one that would be lost when she left this era forever... She also thought with a out of place smile, that she would never again think so deeply or concern herself with life altering decisions while the light of the moon was not in the sky... Because she couldn't really think straight at all with the sounds echoing loudly in her head, making shivers go down her spine, and making her heart twinge with something she couldn't quite place.

_Never again..._**  
**


	22. Online

**Online**

Sesshomaru blinked, his heart aching suddenly on his bare chest as he felt his aura collapse inward in a quick, practiced way that he had done for centuries, feeling the first rays of the sun kiss onto his white skin, and felt the longing of his true form ripe through his being in a quick and as poisonous as his own poison claws. He felt his lungs seize in the familiar way, that suffocating feeling of suddenly being too small, and not being able to breath just right. It passed, as it always did, and he allowed himself in his solitude to let out just the tiniest breaths of relief. He felt his eyes cool into their ice chipped gold, and he felt the last slivers of his red blooded rage slip out. His fist clenched, sharp claws digging tightly into his palm as he felt the sudden jolt of shiver go down where his arm should have been, and he could swear that he felt the sudden curl of his phantom claws. His eyes closed for the briefest second, and he allowed with the greatest distaste for a small frown to form at his lips.

How he hated it. How he hated the feeling of his phantom arm. How he hated this with a passion that was out of character for him... His only arm came to touch where his other should have been, flinching as if his claws were passing through flesh... How he wished it was true...

"...Do you feel something there?" said a soft, and husky voice to his right.

Sesshomaru cursed himself for not paying attention and spun to see who had called to him, sliver hair and untucked hamkama swirling around his bare ankles. His golden eyes met gray, and he felt his heart skip a beat for no reason he could really explain.

"I said, do you feel something there?" asked the Miko again, after the silence had dragged on for much to long.

He didn't speak. It was not in his nature to speak, but to listen to what others could never hear... But at that moment, even if he wished to speak, Sesshomaru felt that he could never even make a sound. She looked different in the dawn light. He felt that she seemed to be a creature of day, of the noon sun, one who laughed and seemed to glow in her very aura and nature... But it wasn't so at this moment. Her large eyes, the ones that never ceased to make him wonder what type of future was to come if a human could possess such colored eyes, looked so solemn and calm. Her skin was kissed with just the softest of touches, and it glowed just as the moonlight he had mourned for just hours ago. Her hair danced in the wind, much longer than what it had been when he had first met her, twenty-four full moons ago, reaching past her waist... He blinked, gazing into her eyes with a wariness that made him feel ill.

She wore, he noted suddenly, a hamkama and a kimono that was quite odd, made of a soft blue and luminous fabric, covered in the silver stars and, what he realized with a jolt, crescent moons. Around her frail shoulders a thin red blanket protected her from the cold, and on her feet were thin and flimsy shoes, made of some sort of plush material, and bright pink. He gazed at her with a raised brows... And then nodded, answering her rather odd question, still not being able to make a sound. She frowned, and tilted her head to the side like a curious bird.

"How strange... Sesshomaru-sama, you have Phantom Limb Syndrome... I didn't know that demons could get that like humans..." said the Miko with a slight bob of her head, tone sad.

Sesshomaru gathered himself up and gave her a cold stare.

"This Sesshomaru would never have anything that a mere_** human **_would have." he said in an almost whisper, his voice dripping with poison.

The Miko smiled thinly.

"Is that right, oh mighty Demon Lord?... How interesting... Do you feel cold, tingling, and maybe even the feeling as if your arm is truly there? As if you could reach out and grasp something in your deadly claws?" she said with hooded eyes.

Sesshomaru tensed, and took a small step back at her emotionless tone... That was something he only did! The girl's eyes met the light again as she took a step forward. She kept stepping forward until she was only a foot apart from him, her head tilted upwards just so she could look him in the eyes. Silence fell around them like a lead weight, and Sesshomaru felt as if he could barely breath, as if his lungs were suddenly to small again. Because she had described his phantom arm to perfection, and it made him all the more wary of the strange Miko.

"How do you know so much of this Miko?" he whispered out no longer being able to bear the silence.

She smiled again, just as thinly as before.

"I read about it online..." she said matter of factually, small hand reaching out to him.

He didn't stop her. He simply let her touch his breast with a the lightest of touches, and he could swear her small hand could have been the touch of a butterfly wings... But then those five digits of her's traveled across his shuddering skin to where his arm should have been, feeling a jolt go through his entire body, warm, scorching and completely electrifying shoot through his entire body like molten flames as she looked on to it... Her gray eyes held no pity, no disgust, only sorrow, and a sort of thing that made his pulse quicken in a way that it hadn't for over two hundred years. Her eyes then flickered across his chest, slowly up his long neck, and studying the features of his face, before they met his eyes again. She then turned around, her long hair fluttering and tickling across his bare chest, and she left the clearing he had run off to to do the Mourning, without another word... And Sesshomaru was left feeling disoriented, wary, and completely confused.

He had no idea why she had touched him... He had no idea why he had allowed her to touch him... And somehow, Sesshomaru found that he didn't care... And he also found, with a slightly furious brows, that he had no idea what she meant when she had used the term 'online'...


	23. Failure

**Failure**

Kagome trembled, her eyes wide as she took in before her the aftermath of yet another battle. It was days after that strange dawn morning where something had possessed her to touch the cold Demon Lord, and it was days after were her fingertips still tingled with the jolt of electricity the feel of his skin had felt on her palms...But at the moment Kagome couldn't feel that warm and pleasant sensation in her being, not anymore... All she felt in herself was the humming in her very nerves, and she could almost feel the whole jewel with her... And she she hadn't expected this feeling, she hadn't expected this... This... This putrid feeling. She didn't want it anymore... It ate at her skin and it flickered in her veins with a slow and twisted feeling. And as she looked around her, the body of all those that she had met, all those who had been touched by Naraku's twisted self, all those who had suffered and had agreed to fight against them. Including the twisted thing that had started it all, his pale lips open wide, brow dried and caked in his hair, and his red eyes flat and lifeless.

It was something that she would have always would have connected with victory... But... As Kagome trembled and looked at every precious face, feeling the sickening pulse of the jewel inside her, she felt it twist and give almost a snicker of wicked glee... And at that moment Kagome felt like an utter, complete and idiotic failure...And then, Kagome's gray eyes met flat, golden ones, and she felt something twist inside her, and not being able to hold back any longer, Kagome let out a scream that echoed in her ears and the battlefield, and she felt tears drip down her cheeks... Again, as Kagome fell to the ground, crawling to the place where _**he**_ was sprawled on the ground, touching his face with trembling hands, she couldn't help but feel the failure screaming inside her...


	24. Rebirth

**Rebirth**

She was screaming. It was a loud pricing scream that hurt his sensitive ears and made his heart skip one or two beats in his chest as she thrashed around in her strange futon, tears running down her cheeks... Her pack leapt into action, hands reaching and gentle as they untangled her from her thin blanket. Inuyasha placed her suddenly still head in his lap with a gentleness that most didn't know he possessed, claws moving away her sweat slicked hair away from her face, touching her brow in an almost reverent way. His golden eyes were soft and full of pain, his thick brows furrowed as he looked on at the Miko. The monk placed her feet gently in his lap as well, hands resting on her ankles not in a way he was famous for but in a way that would have shocked anybody, his thumbs were running in soothing circles, and his lips mouthed rapidly and soundlessly into some form of prayer... The kit just curled up into the side of her neck, paws clutching tightly onto the collar of her strange kimono, mumbling a soft mama, something he wouldn't have dared to whisper if she had been awake. The female warrior held her hands in her own, a displeased and frighten look in her dark eyes. Even his own Ward stood off to the side, biting her lip and looking down at the Miko with a frighten look, alternating between the Miko and himself, as if she though she thought he knew how to help the Miko...

"Kagome..." whispered his half brother suddenly.

The Miko stilled further, body tensing as the half-breed's strangely gentle voice reached her mind.

"Kagome." whispered the others as well, voices soft and gentle.

His Ward repeated the name, and surprisingly so did Jaken, and the Miko's screams lowered to the smallest degree... Sesshomaru suddenly found himself kneeling near the Miko, ignoring his half brother's growl and looking at her pained face.

"Kagome." he breathed.

Lashes fluttered for the briefest second, before her eyes snapped opened, and the Miko still screamed as she blotted upwards, just missing the mutt's head as she sat up, the kit clinging to her shoulder. She looked around to her pack and Sesshomaru's own, and gasped, hands coming up to her mouth.

"I...Oh..." she whispered, trembling.

She scrambled away from her pack, racing backwards until touched the rough bark of the tree she came to rest upon. Inuyasha approached her with a raised hand.

"Kagome?" he said calmly.

The Miko sobbed, before running into his arms without a thought. Inuyasha for his part, Sesshomaru saw, clutched her much too tightly for one that was devoted to her previous incarnation. His face crushed itself into her surly fragrant and soft hair. They stayed like that for an endless moment that displeased Sesshomaru.

"I have to go to Kaede..." whispered the Miko.

Inuyasha shook his head.

"No we have to keep going Kagome, we don't have time to do this..." he said in a fierce growl, clutching almost painfully tight on the Miko...

Sesshomaru felt for the first time in his life that he agreed on something more than killing Naraku with his half brother. She shook her head rapidly in Inuyasha's chest.

"Please..." she whispered so softly that even he almost missed it.

Inuyasha said nothing, before he whispered a reluctant fine. The Miko finally collapsed in his arms, exhausted.

"Thank you..." she whispered softly into his chest, voice full of love.

Sesshomaru felt a phantom shiver go down where his arm had been, and he almost allowed his remaining hand to come up to clutch at it... Almost. He instead looked on coolly to the still embracing couple, feeling something die within in him at the very sickening sight... When the Miko suddenly looked up, her eyes glowing with something that made pulse quicken, a smile on her face, and never wavering from his own golden eyes... Well, he felt what had died within him have a stunning, glowing and gloriously revive within him. Somehow, Sesshomaru almost allowed himself to smile at its rebirth, oddly pleased when her gaze never left his.


	25. Breaking Away

**Breaking Away**

She made a break for it. As soon as Kagome and the band had reached the village, she had found the first opportunity to break away from them, promising herself to see Kaede once she visited her mother. She needed to talk with her mother, no more excuses, no more agonizing life changing decisions to be made by herself. She was going to consult the two wisest people she had the pleasure of knowing, and then she would see where that would leave her... She hated breaking away from her friends in the middle of the night, like she was doing now, but she had no choice... She slipped onto the lip of the well, somehow compelled to look upwards as she fell through, surprised into screaming as golden eyes met hers... They soon disappeared with that familiar thrum of power, and Kagome landed softly on the ground of her own time, heart pounding in her ears.


	26. Forever And A Day

**Forever And A Day**

"So, you're saying that you don't belong there, in that time? That when this quest is over you really aren't going to stay there, like I know you've been planning to?" asked the soft voice of Kagome's mother, furrowed brows and a small frown on her face.

Kagome herself sighed, rubbing her red and now dried eyes with her fingers, her other hand clutching at her warm tea, savoring the soft and calming fragrance of camellia touching softly in her nose. She sighed again as she nodded to her mother, loving the fact that she had known that she had been planing on staying forever in the past era, even if she had never told her mother her plans to do so...

"I just... It... Came to me... I'm not from there mama. It isn't my time... It isn't my home..." she whispered softly, looking at her mother with pleading gray eyes.

Mrs. Higurashi looked at her daughter's eyes with love and understanding, noting that they looked so much like her late husband's, who had been a half Japanese-American, and had died in an accident when Kagome had been very young, and Souta was still within her... She shook her head away from these thoughts, and placed a hand over her daughter's. She noted with sadness that Kagome's was trembling.

"Dear... Whatever you deiced is what I will support... Don't sacrifice your happiness just because you feel that we will miss you..." she told her daughter strenly.

Kagome simply let out a very bitter laugh.

"Mama... What makes you think that staying will make me happy? What about my life in this era? What about my friends? What about my family? What about the sheer lunacy it is to stay in that era?" she said dry sob, closing her eyes.

Mrs. Higurashi tighten her hold on Kagome's hand.

"Kagome... _**Listen **_to me. That era is your home as much as this one, even more so... You've been going back and forth between the two for forever and a day... And you spend most of your time in the past... Which do you think is more important?"

Kagome shook her head rapidly.

"I do that out of responsibility... Part of me hates it there mama... It's brought me nothing but pain." whispered Kagome softly.

"Yet part of you, _**most**_ of you loves it. What of Inuyasha? Do you not love him anymore, was he just a passing fancy? Did you not promise him forever?" countered her mother.

Kagome sighed.

"Of course I love him... I will always love him... He is my first love... And... He's broken so many promises to me mama, that I don't think a promise I made when I was fifteen counts."

Mrs. Higurashi shook her head sadly at her daughter's soft and almost mournful tone. But took in her steady and serious eyes, finally understanding just what her daughter meant.

"Do... Do you truly think that you could live without them? That you could be happy without them?" she asked her daughter after a moment.

Kagome smiled, placing her tea down to clasp her mother's hand between bother her small hands.

"Yes... I would miss them... I would want them and probably never be able to be completely and utterly happy without them... But... I would miss you, Grandpa, and Souta more... I can't live without my family, and though they are my family too... I just... I just love you more." whispered Kagome.

Mrs. Higurashi let the tears slide down her cheeks without pause, and she lowered her head into her hands, feeling her daughter's arms coming to embrace her tightly. She hiccuped, and managed to get out:

"When did you become so wise?" in a hoarse and almost broken whisper.

She didn't have to look to know that her daughter was smiling, or that she was crying as well when she answered her:

"For forever and a day."**  
**


	27. Lost And Found

**Lost And Found**

As Kagome walked through the people filled streets of Tokyo, she couldn't help but feel as if she was lost in a massive sea, being a single drop dancing around and being twisted and pulled by the tide. She clutched tightly at her bags, wishing that she had bullied Souta into skipping school to help her pick up the extra food and supplies that she needed before she returned to the past... She had almost gone to school that morning, but had decided against it, knowing that Inuyasha would have hurried for her, guns blazing. Instead she had headed for the far off market, getting what she knew to be very tough dried food at the military style store... She was not paying attention, glancing her rather beat up wrist watch, trying in vain to lift it up closer to her face to see the small digital numbers, weighed down by her purchases, when she crashed into a rather solid, warm chest. She fell back with a small grunt, almost falling on her ass when the owner of the rather large chest wound their arms her waist, catching her. Kagome looked up, mortified, and gasped as her gray eyes met gold.

… Which Kagome suddenly thought with a slight blink must have been a trick of the light as she looked at the muddy brown eyes of a very tall twenty four year old or so man, his features handsome and very familiar, and his hair inky black pulled back at the nape of his neck by a simple white tie. Kagome looked at him for an endless moment, noting that his eyes were very wide, and that his face looked mildly surprised. She then jumped away, face flushed as she bowed as deeply as she could without tipping over with her heavy load.

"Gomen'nasai!" she screamed.

The man blinked, mouth slightly opened as he looked at her, before he bowed deeply.

"I am at fault, forgive me." he said in a deep, deep baritone that sent shivers down her spine.

Kagome shook her head, her face heating up even more.

"No, no! Trust me sir, it was my fault, I wasn't paying attention." she said with another bow.

The man sighed, brows raised, and the smallest of smallest of smiles on his lips that made her insides melt in a way that made Kagome almost sigh at loud.

"No, trust me. It was my fault... Please accept this as a token of my shame." whispered the man with a flash of gold appearing in his eyes.

Without warning Kagome felt something being placed around her neck, her long hair being lifted away from her neck, and she felt his breath against the nape of her neck, and she felt something warm travel lazily up her spine, and she noticed with a jolt that it was the man's large hand.

"Goodbye... You'll see me soon." whispered the man.

As soon as Kagome felt the warmth of his hands off of her's, she whipped around to... See that he was gone, and no matter how hard she searched the dense crowd, that she couldn't find him. She looked downward to find a simple sliver chain necklace hanging around her neck, a small, sliver moon charm hanging from it, and nestled just above her breast, where she could see the leather thong disappear into. Kagome frowned as she looked around once more, starting to make her way home, not knowing that as she walked away golden eyes followed her, rejoicing at the fact that they had found something that had been lost them long ago.


	28. Light

**Light**

Kagome sighed with relief as she felt her feet touch the familiar ground at the bottom of the Bone Eater's well, landing in the past with a graceful touch of her hiking boots, her shoulders heavy with the burden of another yellow backpack, which she kept many copies of encase of a situation such as thus. She looked upwards through the stone shaft of the well and looking into the light of the sun with a soft and somewhat liberated smile, with careful and practiced ease, she climbed up the vines she always did. When she reached the top, she stopped and looked at the scenery that had first graced her when she had first been pulled into the past. She swung her legs and stood, walking with ease and grace towards the village, intent of speaking to Kaede, not noticing that once again golden eyes were watching her carefully... And that they locked onto the thin necklace around her neck... Noticing with a faint and pleasant twist to their stomach how the light bounced off the crescent moon charm...

* * *

**AN: Um, I don't own it?**

**Okay, I'm sorry I didn't up this in so long, it's just that I started school last Monday and it kinda consumed me... I'll try to keep to updating everyday, but I'm sad to say that I'll probably sometimes be to busy to do so, and will resort to pulling things like this once and a while... I hope you like it, and I hope you review! Next Theme: Dark.**


	29. Dark

**Dark**

She was silent, and it made Kagome nervous. She twisted her hands in her lap, and she bite her lower lip as her one eye looked at her steadily, never wavering as she took in her appearance. Kaede's lined face was so dear to her, and full of such wisdom, in each and every crease within her beloved face held a story, some of which Kagome had heard, some that she knew she never hear. She looked at her with a curious, and sad sparkle in her dark eyes. With an ease and fluidity of someone more than half her age, she careful turned to Kagome, eye closing as she clasped her hands in her own. In the dark, and with the embers of the cooking fire low and almost out, Kagome could hardly see Kaede, though she could feel how veined and calloused her large hands were.

"Child... Ye will be missed... I wish for you never to go... And ye will never be forgotten by these people... By me... But, if your happiness is at stake, ye may go with my blessing, and my prayers." whispered out Kaede, voice gravel and husky.

It was when Kagome felt the wetness of tears drip onto her hands did she know that the old woman was crying, and it was then that Kagome relieved how much they meant to each other. Repressing a sob, she reached out and found her lined face, and clasped it between both of her hands. Gently, as if the sturdy elder would break with the even the lightest touch, Kagome placed her forehead onto Kaede's, and she whispered out:

"_**Thank you.**_.."in a the softest of tones, and in the lightest of whispers.

When Kaede embraced Kagome roughly and with a strength strange for a woman of her age, Kagome was grateful of her, and of one other thing... That in the dark, she would not see her tears.


	30. Faith

**Faith**

Kagome stared in horror at the cackling sight before her, and she tried desperately not to flinch or do anything to display her horror. He smiled, something that was always so twisted and smug that it made some fury flair dangerously in her stomach as he looked her way. His red eyes were steady and just so damn infuriating!

"Ah, and the little fake Miko... Will you contact your more useful incarnation and tell her to answer the call of the jewel already? I tire of her useless stalling." he said in a pleasant voice, as if they were old friends.

Kagome herself couldn't help but blink at his words... He... Thought that it was Kikyo was the one the jewel called to? She almost laughed... After two years in fighting against her and he still underestimated her?

"You bastard! Leave Kikyo out of this!" screamed Inuyasha, lunging forward, and slashing at the tentacles that the puppet produced.

Kagome stayed silent as she notched her bow, watching as Inuyasha almost comically slashed at the laughing puppet, a smile appearing on her face as she oddly celebrated the fact that once again she was being shoved aside by her past self. She stretched her arm backwards in a the familiar way and gather as much spiritual power as she could into the arrow, at least as much as she could without making the shaft crack, and let it fly. As always, she whispered in her mind hit the mark, and watched with satisfaction as her arrow did just that. Naraku's puppet disappeared as it always did, and Kagome ignored the looks of surprise everybody sent her way. Because Naraku was soon going to be did, if the plan forming in her mind worked, all of this would be over, and since Kagome was finished from agonizing over if she should stay or she should go, she was done stalling as well... And she had faith, she had faith that in the end, she would be content with the fact that Naraku was dead, and that her family in this era were safe...


	31. Colors

**Colors**

"Is... Is this what you want?" asked the gravel tone of Kikyo, dark eyes dull and lifeless.

Kagome let her sparkling gray eyes meet her past life's ones, and she gave a simple nod. Kikyo's emotionless face dipped into a small frown, and she carefully tucked away a wayward strand of her long and straight hair. It was amazing how much the two of them looked alike, mused Kagome, tucking a strand of her own rather messy hair behind her ear... Their skin color was the same, pale white though Kikyo's had a strange sheen to her's, like the glaze of ceramic... Their hair color was the same as well, an inky black that shone blue in the sun, as were the shape of their noses, the curve of their brows and the plumpness of their lips... But their were very sharp differences between them as well... Kikyo was taller, much taller, and her body was the much more curvacious figure of a woman's. She was older as well, from what she had heard from Kaede Kikyo had been twenty-five when she died, and Kagome was only seventeen. Their wide eyes were much the same, other than the obvious color difference and the fact that Kagome's were wider due to her youth... The way they held themselves was very, very different as well.

Kikyo was cold, restrained, and almost painfully wound in the way she walked, spoke and acted. Kagome herself was light, warm, and had an easy and refreshing grace to her nature. They were as different as they could be, yet they were the same in the way that they were to the very core, for they were, in their very essences, Kagome knew, the same person... Culture, surroundings, people, experiences and time had shaped their personality and their natures. It was a simple fact that both Kagome and Kikyo knew. And as they looked at each other, different colored eyes locked, they knew one thing for sure, with their plan in action, their true colors would be laid bare.


	32. Exploration

**Exploration**

Sesshomaru kept his eyes on the pair of two Mikos in front of him, noting with a raised brow that though the taller and pot of clay was steady and much more elegant in her walk, the shorter of the two walked in a way that was confidant, steady and without hesitation, though he could see a slight wariness to both their walks, as the walked well ahead of both his own pack, and their own. They walked together, talking softly, and rapidly, one shaking her head, the other smiling wanly and nodding. In his exploration of keeping his gaze on the two Miko's, for once in his life Sesshomaru missed the feeling of being gazed upon. Two pair of eyes locked onto his face, one a curious shade of black, that almost looked violet, and the other, a pair of furiousness and molten gold.


	33. Seeing Red

**Seeing Red**

He landed in front of his person with a quick and slightly offish leap, eyes so much like his own locking in his, a glare set in his brows and a scowl on his face. He stood up, tall and proud, the sight of red of his fire-rat armor irritating to his eyes. He took out their father's fang without a word, and he angled it at him. Sesshomaru just raised his brows. And his brother leaped, and then they begun their dance. A dance of bone and steel against the other, of fast and circling footsteps, of the steady pulse of battle roaring in his ears. When they came so close to each, with their blades crossed, his half-brother whispered out:

"Stay away from both of them..." he growled out, eyes full of fire.

Sesshomaru merely raised a brow, wondering what in the name of Kami was his idiot brother talking about.

"I protect them both, so leave Kikyo and Kagome alone, yeh got that?"he whispered again.

Sesshomaru blinked, and gave his brother a thin smile. In the heat of battle, it was never a good thing for him to smile. With an almost snarl, he pushed his brother back, and he allowed for the red blood of fury leak into his eyes. It was a strange sensation, one that he had never gotten over since he was a pup. Seeing red, his father had told him, was only for the most important of battles, and never against your kin. But, at the moment Inuyasha was no kin of his, and he would pay... Sesshomaru wasn't sure why, but he was going to pay, because his inner beast roared with fury in his ears. And he only wanted it to stop. It was then that the steady pulse of a rapidly approaching aura hit his senses, and it was then that he turned rapidly to see the little Miko be confronted by a small tornado, and it was then that she sighed tiredly, her hands being snatched up into big claws.

"KAGOME! How's my woman today!" screamed out a cocky wolf.

Demon wolfs soon appeared in the clearing, as did two humanoid ones, huffing and puffing. It was then that Rin let out a whimper, and it was then that Sesshomaru cut off his battle with his brother, because a more pressing one was before his eyes, which once again were seeing red.


	34. Shades Of Gray

**Shades Of Gray**

The battle with the wolf never started. A pair of blue eyes had caught his for a brief second, before with a quick peck on the cheek for the Miko, and he had run off with his tail between his legs. Irritated, he had turned to see the Miko's face in her hands, while the clay pot looked on at her with raised brows.

"What, was that?" she asked.

Sesshomaru could barely sense it, but he knew amusement was in her otherwise dead tone.

"Shut up!Shut up!" whispered her reincarnation, shaking her head.

"It was Kouga. Lady Kagome's... Suitor of sorts."mused the Monk, his violet eyes sparkling.

The Miko head lifted up, and she threw the enormous pack on her back at the Monk's head with surprising force.

"HE IS NOT!" she screamed out, cheeks flushed a deep crimson.

The Monk laughed weakly from the floor, lifting himself up with a wince, before handing the pack back to the Miko meekly.

"You haven't said no to him in all these years Lady Kagome, it makes one wonder." responded the Monk with a small quirk of his mouth.

The Miko frowned, shouldering the pack and looking at him with a grim light to her eyes.

"I did tell him no... But... He figured out... And he... Keeps coming back again." mumbled the girl with a sigh, rubbing her eyes.

"Figured out what my lady?" said the Monk delightfully, eyes flickering to Sesshomaru for the briefest second.

Sesshomaru himself narrowed his eyes to the smallest degree. What in Kami's name was the Monk after that had to do with him? The Miko ducked her head, and frowned. She then looked straight past the Monk, to the scowling Inuyasha, and looked at him with those eyes of hers, a million shades of gray locking with molten gold. The Miko's lower lip trembled, and she spoke not at the Monk, but at his brother.

"That I'm no longer in love with Inuyasha." she whispered out.


	35. Forgotten

**Forgotten**

Her words cut through Inuyasha's chest like the sharpest of blades, and he knew that no other blade could ever make him hurt like this. She looked at him with the one of the pair of eyes that meant so much with him, with sadness in there, but no heartache... That meant that she had stopped loving him for a long time. And it cut through him again. He could only think two things as Kagome ran away from the stunned group... One, that he knew right then and there that the sweet and precious promise to stay with him forever was now null and void... And two, that he couldn't believe that he was forgotten by one of the people that meant the most to him...


	36. Dreamer

**Dreamer**

Kagome heartbeat slowed in her chest as she sat down, eyes closed as she even out her breath. She had always been a dreamer she mused as she thought back to her years before the well... And the second she had fallen in, the second she had first met those golden eyes, she had been lost in the dream of the love she could have for him... Along the way she had actually fallen in love with him, and it had been a long, messy, bloody road for her. She didn't regret it, she truly didn't, but Kagome felt that she could have saved Inuyasha himself the pain... He was usually a simple creature, but when it came to love he was as complex as the longest of puzzles. And she had known the second she had said those words, she had hurt him... And that after all this time, he hadn't just chosen to keep his love for Kikyo... But the love he held for her... Kagome sighed, and allowed herself to drift into sleep, hoping to dream of a world where Inuyasha could just be happy...

* * *

**AN: Okay, don't own, wish I really did...**

**Anyway, so yeah, kinda random Inuyasha POV last chapter, but I felt that he needed to be in there after that little bomb Kagome dropped on him... Not to mention that she hasn't told anyone, save for Kaede that she doesn't plan to stay in the past... Not to mention whatever the scheme she has going with Kikyo... So yeah... Oh, and I'm sorry that I keep doing this where I don't update for days then update in one swoop, it just that time keeps escaping me, and I can't seem to do it every day like I mean to... Sigh... Anyway, thank you for reading, and please review! **


	37. Mist

**Mist**

She was the mist, he thought as he followed her scent through the woods, noting faintly that most of her pack followed behind him, while his brother and the clay Miko stayed behind, to make camp for the night. She was corporal like the mist, yet somehow she could never be there enough to grasp between his fingers... She drifted on the shifting winds, a cloud, gentle presence, yet a irritating one which never was under his notice. She was in his mind, in his heart, she drove his beast mad with something he could never explain... His very aura reacted whenever he let his guard down, and he knew not the reason. Her gray eyes drove him mad, yet soothed him with just a look... The necklace that she held around her neck made his pulse quicken a few beats, and it made his beast purr with delight at the sign of that small, crescent sliver moon. She was there one second, yet gone the next, down that well of her's and into her own time.. She was everything... She was nothing... She was always there... She was never there... She was corporal, yet not... She was... She was... She was the mist.


	38. Burning

**Burning**

It came so swiftly, so suddenly that Kagome's wonderful dream crumbled within a second, and her gray eyes snapped open, though she reflected with a panic that she could see nothing at all, because all of the nerves in her body were concentrated on a single thing... She felt it deep within her skin, settling inside the very marrow of her bones and she shrieked as the molten fire raged throughout her body, the highest concentration settling in the space within her heart. She could feel the hum a hundred fold now, though she would never ever call it something as passive as a hum any longer, for they were sheer screams within her, and she could tell that somehow, the jewel was becoming impatient... And it was impatient for her to come, for her to fulfill her role within this time. Kagome could only hope as she let out another scream that in doing so the burning would stop.


	39. Out Of Time

**Out Of Time**

It took Sesshomaru all but a second to register the sounds up ahead were screams, it took him yet another one to register that those screams where her's, and it took him even less of a second to react. He lunged forward, ignoring the shoots of alarm of the various pack-mates of the Miko, and letting whatever power he had flow into his magic and aura so he could propel himself forward to fly even faster. Even his own eyes blurred and watered as he forced himself go even faster. Part of him begged to whatever Kami that would listen to a demon that he would not run out of time, and that the Miko would be safe.


	40. Knowing How

**Knowing How**

He landed in the smallest of clearings, his chest heaving rapidly, and his breath coming in quick small burst. Her head was laid against on of the trees, utterly still, and her body was tense with tension, a slick sheen of sweat hovering on her pale skin. He noticed with a small shock that though the eyes were open, they were glazed and he had the sneaking suspicion that the Miko could not see a single thing. She was still screaming he noticed, at a impossibly steady rate. He carefully approached her, crouching down, and placing a delicate claw in the junction of her neck and shoulder, feeling her pulse dance beneath his slender digit. He noticed that the muscles of her neck twitched, as if she was a frightened mare, and he allowed the smallest of frowns to appear at his lips, before he whipped the traitorous emotion away.

"Miko."he intoned coolly.

She did not so much as twitch upon hearing that form of address. And Sesshomaru sighed, thinking that knowing how to do something, and really understanding how to do it were completely different things. He knew how to bring back the girl, but ever since that night, when he had whispered her name, he had felt something in the pit of his stomach just simply saying her name in his mind, and he had felt a certain intimacy inside him each time he addressed her as such, even if he had never dared say it aloud. He looked at the Miko's face, and pressed his claw upon her delicately featured face.

"Kagome."


	41. Fork In The Road

**Fork In The Road**

He should have been able to chose between two paths, he thought with a sigh. Two paths. That had always what he had thought he could count on. The second he had called out Kikyo, he had known that his life had become a fork in the road. And he knew when Naraku was dead he could choose to walk on either or them, or even if he could, to both of them. Kikyo and Kagome, the two that had altered him forever were on the end of each road, and he wanted to keep them both. He knew the world didn't work that way of course, nothing did, but he had precious few things in his life that he wanted to keep. Why couldn't he have them? But, he understood that his path had been chosen. It hurt of course, having to accept the fact that one of the roads had been stripped from him, but it was the end. His path was chosen, she was lingering just to the side of him, gathering the souls with a mournful frown on her face, brown eyes solemn and the scent of soft flowers beneath graveyard dirt... He smiled, mournful himself and hoped that Kagome would be happy on the path _**she**_ had chosen.


	42. Start

**Start**

Sesshomaru felt his heart give a start as the girl's eyes met his. They were clear, gray and wonderfully calm. The screams that had been ripping from her throat were no more, and her breath was remarkably steady. She looked down at her hands, which glowed with the amount of energy that was coursing through her, which made the fine hairs at the back of his neck rise in reaction.

"I... Sesshomaru." she whispered.

She placed her hand above the space his heart would be, and he felt it give another start. Even through the thick and hard material of his armor Sesshomaru could feel the warmth of her flesh. It came from her with the steady hum of sharp, purity, and though it caused no harm to his person, it made his flesh tingle with something he could not place. Her hand shifted, gliding over his armor, and Sesshomaru shivered as if it was gliding over his bare flesh.

Then her small hand placed just on the deform stump of were his arm should have been. Her gray eyes looked up at him again, through the delicate and numerous lashes of her eyes.

"Miko..." He said weakly, confused by what suddenly was entering him through the her hand.

She smiled. A soft, gentle smile that made his heart, for the third time made his heart lurch to a higher pace.

"Trust me." she said softly.

Not knowing why, or how he brought himself to, Sesshomaru did.


	43. Nature's Fury

**Nature's Fury**

The wind howled in her ears, the ground trembled beneath her feet and the sun beat fiercely through the canopy of the trees. It was as if Nature itself was protesting the very act of what she was doing... And she didn't care. The only thing that mattered was what she was doing, and that meant only he mattered at the moment... And her heart sped at the thought. The moon on her chest felt warm, and she smiled. The fury of Nature could do whatever to her, but since she was already a exception of time, and what she was doing was just that... Kagome smiled again as she felt the rush of energy through her. The wind howled. The ground trembled. The sun shined down. Nature's fury did not move her, only the wide golden eyes before her.


	44. At Peace

**At Peace**

It didn't suddenly appear. It was a slow, tingling process that he saw happen without concealing the awe in his gaze. Because, for once Sesshomaru could admit that he was awed. His bone came first. Then the sinew of muscle, veins, and venom pathways came next, wrapping around the pristine bone. Then the thin layer of fat, and then finally, flesh. When it was finished, the glowing of her body did not stop, and she smiled. Both of his fists clenched. And something settled into his stomach... What it was he didn't know. But what he did know was that it contained a sensation of joy... And peace.


	45. Heart Song

**Heart Song**

His heart sang. That was the only way he could describe the sensation in his chest as he looked down at the small female before him. It was a strong, fast and trembling beat. It was a dizzying tempo. And it was utterly his, and strangely, her's too.


	46. Reflection

**Reflection**

Sesshomaru picked her up with both his arms, shuddering with joy at the mere thought, and let his lips twitch as she squealed, latching herself around his neck, and he was grateful that she was careful of his armor sparks as he lunged into the air. She gave a single, soft breath that ghosted over his sensitive ears, which he knew twitched at her soft breath. He heard her heart thundering as he took another jump, forging flying just to feel his whole entire muscle system working together, keeping the miko securely in his arms, and his legs taking him were he wished. He didn't know how long he ran, but when he stopped his throat was dry and he kneeled by the small pool of clear water. He froze at his reflection. Without his knowledge somewhere along the run he had began to smile, and he noted that he hadn't looked this way in quite some time. The miko still clung to him, and his newly placed arm supported her while the other reached for water. He felt that his arm was not the only thing that had so drastically changed his reflection...


	47. Prefection

**Perfection**

His name suited him...Utterly, thought Kagome as she clung to him. His newly healed arm gripped her to him almost too tightly... Her face was buried in his pale neck, and Kagome breathed the steady, heady and sweet scent that came off him in waves. He truly was deadly, in any sense of the word she thought dazedly, head pounding. She felt blackness come over her eyes, and the energy in her muscles suddenly stop, and she felt her body slump out of its tight embrace over his'. Before she could leave into the oblivion of unconsciousness his golden eyes bore into her's with some emotion she couldn't really place, though it did make her smile at him...

Which, he thought as the miko closed her eyes peacefully in his arms, was truly perfection.


	48. Everyday Magic

**Everyday Magic**

Days past reflected Kagome, as she and Kikyo walked side by side, leading the group. Days had passed since she had given Sesshomaru back his arm, and everyone was still a little stunned. Inuyasha had just stared at the reformed limb blankly, and so had most everyone else... No one guessed that it had been Kagome to give back the Demon Lord his arm... And she wanted to keep it that way, if anyone knew, both her and Kikyo's plan would fall apart, and that wouldn't do at all. She thought that maybe Kikyo knew her involvement though, as she had remembered the very shocked face the dead miko had sent her way...

"Look onee-chan! A Rainbow!" squealed out Rin suddenly, jumping onto her arm.

Kagome smiled at the girl, and stopped to see the gorgeous rainbow that spread itself over the forest. She sighed, knowing that the peace of the forest would be one of the things of this era that she would miss. It was such a simple thing, and within each tree she sensed life, pulsing over her flesh in a gentle lull. She closed her eyes and simply let the everyday magic of this era breath across her skin, the air, the sky, the people around her, everything, and smiled. She would truly miss this magic.


	49. Umbrella

**Umbrella**

"Thank you." she said softly as Kagome offered her shelter from the rain.

Kagome smiled at her carnation, which Kikyo did return. She sighed, and they walked quietly along with each other.

"Why did you come to me and ask to do this?" whispered Kikyo after a moment.

Kagome said nothing as she stared at the falling rain. Her hiking boots were drenched in mud, and Kikyo's sandal wearing feet did not fare much better, if worse. She stared at their feet, walking through the thick mud in an eerie tune. Kagome looked back up to stare at the face of her future, when she was twenty or so. She smiled at the very bitter look that Kikyo held, knowing that was her fate...

"Why wouldn't I? It such a simple plan. It'll benefit us both, it'll get me the jewel... And you get a soul back." said Kagome with a smile.

"It will kill you." said Kikyo harshly.

Kagome smiled again.

"A lot of people have claimed to know what will kill me Kikyo, and all of them have been wrong. I know how I will die, old age, curled up with whatever sap gets stuck with me in my era, happy, with thousands of grandchildren and children crying their eyes out as I go out with a smile" said Kagome softly.

Kikyo said nothing for a long time, staring at the rain, before she spoke again.

"You can't do that soulless." she said softly.

Kagome wasn't shocked by the tears that slid down her face as she spoke, nor the look of such conflict in Kikyo's black eyes.

"Kikyo, I never said that you would get my soul." responded Kagome softly.

Kikyo tensed.

"What?" she asked softly.

"A soul is a soul, and if this works, you will return whatever piece of soul that witch stole for you, and the soul that was truly your's will come to you."

Silence again.

"What do you mean?"

Kagome simply smiled.

"I believe that will be clear when we face him." she said softly.

Kikyo didn't say another word.


	50. Party

**Party**

Sweat trickled down the base of his back. It was such a rare thing, but at the moment it was appropriate at the thing he was facing. Thin streams of colored paper littered the forest, and the smell of something sweet rang through the air, making his blood boil at the sickly odor. Their small bodies were littered spread eagle, and their mouths were covered in whatever brown and sticky poison had infected them. He shoot a look towards the cause of such a tragedy, and he noticed with a raised brow that the woman that had weeks ago granted him back his arm was also in a similar state, as was the slayer. They both had content look on their faces, leaning against one each other like sisters, grinning.

"Best chocolate party ever..."mumbled the Miko.

The slayer nodded fiercely, and the children let out a happy groan.

"Can we have another one Onee-chan?" asked his ward, crawling over to her like a grub.

The kit did the same, latching onto his surrogate mother.

"No... Just no!" scolded the dead Miko, groaning as she grabbed onto her stomach.

"Kikyo I told you just to taste it, its not as if you eat anyway." said the live Miko, eyes rolling.

The dead one gave her a stare. The Miko just shrugged, and rolled onto her stomach and crossed her cloth clad legs behind her.

"We ate it all anyway." said the girl with a grimace.

Sesshomaru moved to speak, to say what was this madness when the monk across from him shook his head, looking panicked. He raised a brow.

"Don't. Just don't, its the aftermath of a party, a chocolate party too... Danger lurks here my lord." said the monk in a quite whisper.

He raised another brow, and looked at the cantankerous faces of the subjects of the ritual of the 'chocolate party', and then agreed silently with the monk. Leaning against a tree, Sesshomaru couldn't help but think that his life had taken a odd turn indeed.


	51. Troubling Thoughts

**Troubling Thoughts**

He had noticed it lately, with both Lady Kikyo and Lady Kagome talking at odd hours and at every hour, almost identical heads pressed together talking far away enough that even Lord Sesshomaru could not hear them. It was odd, for the woman had while not hated on Kagome's part, had seriously disliked. Yet they talked as if they were sisters... Estrange sisters meeting after so many years, but sisters nonetheless. What in the name of all the Kami where they planning wondered Miroku, thoughts troubled. All he knew was that this would not bode well, deep in his bones. And by the way Lady Kagome was acting... It meant something about her personally. He frowned and watched as across the fire Kagome ate with delicacy. His eyes narrowed as he watched Lord Sesshomaru watch her again...

Yet anything that bothered him. The Demon Lord did not look just to simply look, but to observe, memorize. To keep. And that, thought Miroku could be a good thing or a bad thing for the young Kagome... He just hopped it was the former.


	52. Stirring Of The Wind

**Stirring Of The Wind**

She felt it, the soft, quick lull. She knew it so well. It was always a roar to her. She had learned to read it since its first hmm. She frowned. The wind blew, swirling her long hair in a furious dance. She felt the song sharpen. She sighed, and frowned deeper. The wind stirred again. She breathed, feeling the tempo of her intake of oxygen quicken. This, she felt as she the furious wind began again, did not mean something good was coming their way. Her hand placed itself where she knew the scar to be, above her hip, and just bellow her ribcage... Her hair danced, her breath quickened. Soon.


	53. Future

**Future**

It was her home, she reflected. She had always known that her reincarnation had come from there. For that brief moment in which she had had all of her soul back, or their soul, Kikyo had seen it all. Souta, the little boy with wisdom beyond his years, yet a side of a child that he only dare show to his big sister. Grandpa, the man that was strange and had taught her so many legends, both false and true, and believed that she had never listened. Her mother, the kind woman that she loved with all her heart... All of her friends, the boy that had an obvious interest in her, and even the sadly deceased cat held a part in their soul.

As they followed her, the group that claimed to know Kagome so well had no idea that she was actually following her future self, who followed the pull of the jewel and finally but that wretched thing to rest. It would soon be over, and in turn, she would be whole again... As Kikyo thought back to the memories of Kagome, she couldn't help but think...

Even with all the love that the future had in store for her, even with all the pain that she had sustained in this past, even with the fact that she wasn't in love with Inuyasha anymore, would her future self be able to let go of her own personal love for this past and live in the time she had been born to? Part of Kikyo, the ugliest, most wretched part of her wished that she couldn't. It would show to everyone that her future self was no better than her, and had too failed with jewel as she had. But, even with that horrible thought, Kikyo watched her future and hoped that she would save them all after all.

* * *

**AN: I do not, or will ever own anything concerning the rights to the Inuyasha franchise. Pity that.**

**I'm back chickies!~ Wow, this took me... Too long to update, that's for sure. I'm very sorry m(_)m I grovel at your feet as a bad authoress. But at least I got it done XD, I think I'm getting back in my writing mode, so hopefully I can finish this baby! (One of my new years resolutions is to finish at the least one of my stories here!)Which honestly won't happen until 47 more chapters... Unless I just go on beyond the hundred themes challenge... Huh... Decisions, decisions... Anyway, I hoped you enjoyed this chapter! Next; Health And Healing.**

**~Peace,**

**Moon Witch**

**P.S. Thank you for being patient, and please review.**

**P.P.S. this fic is at 16,395 words with with titles. Yay~(for a drabble fic, and my first and only one, I find that awesome.)**

**P.P.P.S. If there is anyone who disagrees with my fic, please and kindly directly tell me. The way I portray a character or an event is solely up to me as I am the writer of this fanfiction. I have never said that this was canon but will draw upon the canon made by our beloved mangaka as I see fit. I will take your concerns about what I am writing, thank you. **


	54. Health And Healing

**Health And Healing**

"OW OW OW OW!" screamed out the mighty warrior called Inuyasha.

"Oh shut up, it's a shallow wound." stated Kagome firmly, smearing so more of the 'magic healer' on his skin.

Inuyasha growled.

"If it's so shallow, leave it alone wench!"

"No." she said simply.

Inuyasha huffed, and glared at the beautiful being in front of him. He loved her. It had hit him with ferocity that still stung him. He loved her. But, in his hearts of hearts, Inuyasha couldn't tell what type of love. It could be a million things, but in the end, even after all this time he couldn't really tell what type of love. He knew what type of love he held for Kikyo, that was always certain, but with Kagome it just wasn't so. The reincarnation was something to him, but what, he couldn't be sure. And she had already chosen her path, he just had to follow his...

"You have to be more careful, I won't always be around to piece you back together." muttered Kagome.

Inuyasha softened at her tone, completely missing the meaning of her words.

"Ah, wench, cool it, I'm not dead am I?" he said softly.

She smiled to him, and he smiled back. In side he felt the comfort that whatever mess and heartache between them was slowly, but surly healing. And though he didn't get to keep her because of it, he felt that it was the most amazing thing.


	55. Separation

**Separation**

"Stay close." he said simply, his eyes icy as he looked around at their attackers carefully.

Kagome did the same, her arrows already flying as she stayed back to back with the Demon Lord, and told him to do the same. Inuyasha and Kikyo mimicked their stances with their own attackers a good distance away, and even further away Sango and Miroku did the same. All of them fought well with the other thought Kagome, and surprisingly herself and Sesshomaru did as well. Both their aura's clashed, intermingling in a deadly brew of demonic energy and pure energy.

It was easy, simple as one two three. One, shot. Two, circle. Three, lash out with your aura. One, two, three. And they followed this simple pattern. Over and over. One, two, three. It was when she heard a scream did Kagome break it. She looked up to see Ah-Uh swamped with demons, and her heart clenched.

Jaken spewed fire from his two headed staff, squawking out insults with every breathe, the two children throwing stones that they had gathered just for this purpose, Shippo's full of fox fire, and Rin's full of pure energy. They threw with all their might, but it was not enough, and with the force of the demons, Ah-Uh was pulled away from the battle ground, too fast, and too soon far away for even Sesshomaru or Inuyasha to see.

Kagome cried out, and without another sound nor thought she started to run. She heard the shouts of her family in this era, but she ignored it. Only a single thing mattered, and it was getting away. Faintly in her mind she knew that she had defied Sesshomaru, and had not stayed close. Part of her mourned the separation, but she was too preoccupied by following those four distinctive auras in the distance. She had to reach them. She had to.


	56. Everything For You

**Everything For You**

Quick as lightning he appeared, white hair flashing in the sunlight, both arms reaching out to swoop her quickly onto his back, copying what his brother had done so many times before. It was ungraceful, his armor slippery and cumbersome to hold onto. But she made do, clinging to him like a her life depended on it. They leap higher and higher, longer jumps and longer strides taking them towards the four auras in the distance.

"Faster, they stopped about two miles this way, and they're lingering too long to be safe."said Kagome after a breathless moment.

Sesshomaru simply nodded, taking to the skies in yet another running leap. Midway he transformed, and in swirl of his aura felt her breathe fall out of her lungs. She was suddenly clutching into velvet soft fur, and she swore at the jarring difference. She merely pushed it aside, and breathed a sigh of relief as they finally caught sight of the way-ward dragon. When they saw the demons surrounding him, Kagome felt her blood boil and her purity sing in her body. Not a single thing was going to happen to the ones on Ah-Uh, and she would do anything, and everything to make sure that statement stayed true. She knew that the howling dog she rod on felt the same as he let out a furious snarl.


	57. Slow Down

**Slow Down**

"Are you alright?" asked Kagome, carefully purifying the stranglers surrounding Ah-Uh.

Sesshomaru killed the rest with a simple flick of his large tail. Both Shippo and Rin clung to each other, faces solemn, yet happy as they carefully climbed down from the skittish and wounded dragon. Ah-Uh himself licked carefully at his paw, almost like an oversized cat, hissing slightly. Kagome accepted the running children into her arms without a thought, letting them cling to her now as she turned back to the Demon Lord. He was majestic, terrifying creature of before she noted, watching his large form dip down, shuddering, his aura doing the same as he turned back into humanoid form. He walked to them quickly, needing the speed to reassure himself that they were safe.

"Are they well?" asked he.

Kagome simply nodded, and barely bated an eye as he touched softly on Rin's neck.

"Good."

He slowed then, turning on his heal and walking absently in the direction of their previous battlefield. Kagome and the children walked calmly behind them. They didn't need speed now. They were safe. And that, as Sesshomaru had said, was good.


	58. Lesson

**Lesson**

They had never learned their lesson. Two years, and time and time again, she had proven herself to be something other than her past life. They, in their cores were the same, but different because of the way they had grown and matured. That was the simple difference between the two, and also the fact that Kagome was there in the past to fix the mistake of Kikyo's actions in her life, and she was more than equipped to do so. In time, very very soon, they would see it. Clearly, no smoke nor mirrors, just the plain naked truth. That was to be their lesson, and Kagome was more than ready to give it.


	59. Challenged

**Challenged**

"_Come little miko, come little one_." said a haunting, sickly sweet voice that lingered in their minds long after it had gone.

Both mikos, the ones of past, and future looked up to see the soft crooning of a bird. It was large, crow, black as night and supple in its form. It seemed to smile without teeth, a gaping, supposedly sweet grin that sent a slight shiver down both their spins. They knew they were in a dream, somehow sharing it with the other and knowing that they had no choice but to listen to the crow's made song.

"_Come little miko, come to that filth of a demon and finally answer the song_."

Both Kikyo and Kagome exchanged a glance, and in their shared dream, they recognized the challenge in the crow's words.

"_Say the right words, and do not fail in your roll_." he said, chuckling.

With that both mikos woke up, jolting straight up, eyes wide. Eyes around them opened, and glanced at them, wondering what on the earth had made both women wake up. However, those in question simply stared at the other in a haze, trying to understand the dream to no avail. Grey and brown eyes locked suddenly.

"Did you see that?" asked a shaken Kagome.

"Yes." said an equally shaken Kikyo.

Both frowned at the implications. The challenge was meant for one, yet it was shared by both. They knew they were connected, but not to that extent. But whatever the meaning, they both knew something for certain, despite their nerves at such a dream, that whatever challenge they received they would face it head on, and conquer, together.


	60. Exhaustion

**Exhaustion**

It ate at him like it always did, his beads were painfully tight against his hand, and he felt himself griping them as he always did when he was thinking, or stressed. His violet eyes felt heavy, in the dim firelight, but Miroku could not let his gaze stray away from the Demon Lord and Shikon Miko. His golden eyes, he noticed, would flicker to her again and again, and her gray orbs would do the same thing. It was almost a dance between the two powerful beings. A soft, dance with no true steps, unsteady, clumsy and sometimes ending on pain on either of the partners. But it was a beautiful one, one of healing and discovery of something the two hadn't known in a form that wasn't sorrowful, or at least, no more than it should be.

It was something that was very familiar to him. He himself was waiting for his own personal dance with Sango to end, for him to be a man that could have a child without the beads he himself held, the ones that dug into his palm now... But, really he thought watching as the Lord snuck another look towards his own partner, who at the moment was speaking to her previous incarnation in hushed tones far from the firelight, the two should stop their dance soon. More than a curse was in between them, and Miroku had the feeling that the female partner had left even more unspoken than the silent Lord. But, he digressed. He knew that despite whatever was left unsaid, both partners, were most likely exhausted, and needed a long rest.

Miroku chuckled at the thought, and finally let his violet eyes close.


	61. Accuracy

**Accuracy**

The song of the jewel was getting muffled, as if by white noise, or as if it had suddenly been turned to a different frequency, and the pitch was all wrong. Kagome couldn't explain it any other way to Kikyo whenever they had a chance to speak alone, and both carnations felt a acute sense of terror at the thought of the jewel becoming silent. Their whole plan they knew, was dependent on the finding the stupid thing once and for all. The pieces around her neck were of no consequence, and would join the rest soon enough. Koga would come across them soon enough, and Kikyo had already convinced Kagome to take his shards. Then the whole madness would end, and that damn song ringing now(however muffled) would be gone...

The song continued after all, and Kagome followed the path, walking behind her previous carnation in their ruse with a confidence, silently praying for accuracy in their course. It was all she could do, after all.

* * *

**AN: I do not own Inuyasha that priviedge goes to the wonderful mangakai and the respect publishers/animation companies.**

**If anyone's wondering Kohaku wasn't mentioned for a reason, and his time will come soon. Mwhahahahah! Just kidding!... Or am I?**


	62. Versus

**Versus**

Part of Kagome mused as she walked along that the sentient being that had developed outside of the fighting souls trapped within the jewel knew what her task was, and was suddenly trying to prevent its demise. She felt a vile hatred towards it, feeling that it had caused so much pain and was bent on 'living' to cause even more... But despite its effort, Kagome still felt or heard the scream faintly through all the white noise. The great miko Midoriko was the screaming, singing voice, and though stifled, it still fought on to make itself heard to her.

Versus Midoriko and the jewel, Kagome knew who was winning, because the song was still ringing in her ears. And she couldn't help but feel affection towards the great Miko because of it.

* * *

**AN: I do not own Inuyasha that privileged goes to the wonderful mangakai and the respected publishers/animation companies.**

**Next chapter: Heartful Apology**


	63. Heartfelt Apology

**Heartfelt Apology**

He landed with grace in front of her, and Kagome felt more than heard Sango's cry of surprise. She blinked at his serious, mournful face. He said nothing, only walked to everyone's surprise, Rin. He bowed low, and still said not a word. When he did speak, he said very softly, he was very sorry. Rin smiled, and touched his head with her little hand.

"Rin forgives you."she said simply.

Sesshomaru's face was impassive, but despite his grudge against the boy, he made no move to hurt him. Rin, the one he had wronged had forgiven him, and the boy had never meant to have done what he did in the first place... And she was smiling to him, in a way she did usually to those that meant something to her. Besides, the tears in the slayer's face said much as she embraced him tightly. It seems it was not only Rin who had forgiven him.


	64. Luck

**Luck**

Kagome said nothing, and Kikyo did the same. Their companions parted as they approached, and Sango looked away. Kagome felt her heart twinge, but she said nothing as she touched lightly on the back of Kohaku's neck. He smiled.

"Thank you Kagome-sama, with any luck, my next life shall be more peaceful than this one."he said it softly and with a bright smile to his face.

Kagome smiled herself, and before she pulled away the already pure shard, she gave the boy her own brand of luck, kissing him softly on each cheek, and then his forehead with tears falling on his freckled face. She pulled softly, and gently. Kahaku did not cry out, but he kneeled, and his breathe came in harsh gasps. Sango came rushing forward, and Kagome stepped back. Sesshomaru himself then stepped forward, blade singing through the air.

His blade hit, and Kohaku's breathe eased. Rin squealed and tackled the older boy. Sesshomaru gazed at Kagome and said simply:

"You make your own luck."


	65. Impressions

**Impressions**

His first impression of the rage tag team that had assembled around them as they marched to Naraku?

Inadequate at best.

His second? That every single one of them looked towards the Miko from the future with affection, and had gathered because of her influence. She was the key element in which had gathered them all, her coming to the past, her powers and her very essence had been the one thing to change the course of their story. And he found, that no one minded. He watched the wolf in front of him with narrowed eyes, noting that she took the shards away with delicate precision like that of a doctor, and barely flinched at his howl or his rather improper words.

She grimaced slightly when she removed the ones from around her neck, and carefully took those out. Closing her strange eyes, the Miko clasped her two hands together, which glowed a rose light for a brief second. When her two hands unfolded with the grace of a flower opening, a startling amount of the jewel laid in her hand. She smiled, thinly, and Sesshomaru blinked at her... Almost terrified and sorrowful expression. It gave him then a sense of forbidding, and if he had been anyone else a chill would have run up his spin.

It was then that Sesshomaru gained the impression that Kagome was not to stay within in the present time. It was then that he finally decided to act on what he had been sensing within his silent storm of emotions. With a sigh, he stepped towards her.


	66. Teenager

**Teenager**

Her heart beat as he looked at her, wordlessly asking for something while the group chattered at each other and prepared themselves for the battle that was to come. His molten gaze was electrifying to her nerves, and within his eyes she cold see past the glacial facade of his solemn face. She felt her hormones, something she viciously tried to kept in check exploded in her brain, and as he came closer she felt as if the chemical imbalance his nearness cause would very much kill her if he kept such a gaze. Because despite the great destiny that had been thrust upon her from such an early age, Kagome was still only seventeen, a teenager, and it was very evident in the way she reacted to him taking an even closer step towards her. She felt herself smiling though, almost so brightly that it hurt the muscles in her face.

"OI! Kagome, bastard, get movin' we're going." screamed out Inuyasha.

Kagome started, and looked to a pair of other molten eyes, less intense and looking impatient. With a sigh, she threw back her adolescent reactions. Now was not the time, and it seemed that Sesshomaru saw it as well. With a sigh, he bowed his head a fraction, and his eyes told her that whatever he was to say would not be left unsaid. Somewhere inside Kagome quivered at the thought.


	67. Irregular Orbit

**Irregular Orbit**

His golden gaze, he knew, could burn through the wood of the old, worn well in front of him. The wood was more cracked, he thought, the edges soft and not quite rotted, but close, and pulsed with that strange type of energy that it had over five hundred years ago, when he had first seen Kagome jump through the well. Maybe it had waned, somewhat, or at least that was what he thought, standing so close to it, and gazing at and hoping that his gaze would quicken the process of bringing that beloved person that had... Altered him so much.

"Hey. Bastard. Staring at it won't make her arrive faster, you should know that _**little**_ brother."said a gruff, familiar voice, deep with his age.

Sesshomaru turned, none to pleased at the way of address his brother had taken over the last two hundred years. His eyes caught golden eyes, much like his own, save they were softer with a human light, and had the tell tale addition of small, but noticeable, creases beginning at the corners. His body was broad, fit, still shorter than himself(The kami were not as merciless to give him that advantage), but it had the faint edge of age, and his younger brother looked liked a youthful, late thirty year old in human years, though he was now pushing near eight hundred. He looked older than Sesshomaru, by a good fourteen years or so. It was a fact that Inuyasha gloated over since a elderly woman had pointed it out, saying with a pinched mouth that the elder of the two was too rough, and should learn to be more polite, like the his younger sibling. To the say the least, Sesshomaru had not been pleased at the woman's advice, especially considering their pack's reaction. Since that day, however, Inuyasha had never let him live it down.

"Hn."he said simply, turning back his gaze back to the well.

"He makes a point Sesshomaru-sama."said a soft, pleasant voice.

For the second time, he turned, and his Ward's brown eyes gazed at him steadily. She smiled, dimples appearing at the side of her face. She looked only a few years younger than himself, he thought, and wondered when those who had looked so youthful had caught up so quickly.

"I cannot help it, knowing that time there will soon end for her."he responded honestly, closing his eyes with a sigh.

A frown appeared on both his packmates' faces, he knew without opening his eyes. Probably more of scowl on the elder of the two. They both knew him well enough, with five hundred years of companionship, and they knew the... The worry, for the lack of the better word, in his voice. They did not know, exactly, what had happened to Kagome when she had made her wish, or at least, they did not know what happened to the wish maker herself. They knew her results then, and for themselves, but not for her. The Miko from the future, the girl with those stunning, gray eyes, the girl who had brought them all together as if she was their sun, and they the clumsy, harsh planets that would circle and follow her everywhere, had left no hint of herself in the past. Nothing but the memories, and the gleaming, bright and infectious thing that was her smile as she disappeared.

That was the last memory he had of her, or at least, the last memory he had of the girl that had left him then. The fleeting glimpses of her throughout her life, the young cherbic youth with a gap tooth smile similar very much to Rin in her youth, the curious and very tomboyish girl that was very at odds to what he had thought she would be, and the young girl that fell through the well for the first time. And then the young lady, that would... That would alter him. For the better, he thought...

Inuyasha sighed, interrupting his thoughts, and running his hand through his bound hair, making it an unruly mess. The movement brought out the faded gold band on his finger.

"Look, Sess... I know this is hard for you, hell, its hard on all of us. Shippo is particularly shitting bricks and forming ulcers as we speak from the stress, as is Kilala, and that mangy wolf, and only the kamis' know how many more are shacked in the house now, each time we go back the word spreads and more people come to wait for her... But you have to relax. It'll be a while yet, and starving yourself and make yourself look your age isn't going to help."said his brother firmly.

"Not to mention simply piss off Kagome-nee-san."said Rin wisely, a slight smirk to her angelic face.

Sesshomaru simply sighed.

"Who is Alpha again?"he snapped, with little heat.

Both Rin and Inuyasha turned to each other, for a brief second, communication that they could only share before they spoke;

"Kagome."chorused his constant pains in his side, smirks wide on their faces.

Sesshomaru could only pinch the bridge of his nose.

"Look, little bro, cool your jets."said Inuyasha.

"Must you use slang?" he snapped again, feeling cornered.

"Well yeah, gotta stay hip with the kids yo!"

Sesshomaru could only role his eyes, an unfortunate habit he had picked up from a certain time traveling Miko as Rin giggled. After a moment, the three fell silent. Rin left first, taking a long look at her father before she kissed him on the cheek, and then Inuyasha, before she bid goodbye with a sigh. She knew Sesshomaru all too well, and knew when to leave. His 'elder' brother was almost too stubborn to go, but had grown in the last five hundred years. He simply clapped him on the back.

"Eat what Kagome's mom brings you, it's an insult to your future mother-in-law to refuse."he said quietly, before he left.

Sesshomaru only pinched the bridge of his nose, turning his gaze to the well to wait for the sun to return.


	68. Cold Embrace

**Cold Embrace**

The air was chilling, surrounding her like a fridge embrace, and Kagome relished it, for it kept her alert, hearing the sounds of those preparing for battle, at Kikyo's command. She had told her fellow allies that the final fight with Naraku was today, at midday, and he was waiting for them. Now, everyone prepared, armors and weapons gleaming, faces hard, tense and filled with the dread for the next day. Kagome herself strapping her trusty bow, and three full quivers onto her slim back, looking down at her clothing with some amusement. It was a far cry from her middle school uniform, in the places of loafers, she wore well worn hiking boots, in the place of her pleated green skirt she wore comfortable, low rise cargo pants, pockets filled to the brim with various sutras, fox-fired items, and a few magical charms that she had gained from a witch a while back. Her torso was in a tank top, reveling yes, but it left her arms free. And she knew that she would need that movement later.

The shards were hidden deep within the confines of her shirt, and she heard them sing with an intensity that almost split her ear drums. On her breast bone, for the oddest reason, Kagome wore the necklace the stranger had given her in the future. The sliver, crescent moon shone in the dawning light, and she felt a steady comfort with the knowledge of the future without Naraku. As she looked down at herself, Kagome knew that she was indeed a very different person than the girl who had fallen through the well in the first place. She was still, she would hope, kind, and still had that mothering nature that suited her so well, but she had a level of maturity that surpassed most people twice her age. Despite everything, despite all the whining and the moaning and the emotional roll coaster that this experience had given her, Kagome felt no regret, or at least, no regret for coming here in the first place. She smiled, and gently touched the one homage to the girl that had been pulled into the well in the first place. Her school uniform tie, held her long, seemingly endless hair back, and out of her face.

"Kagome."came the solemn voice, so much like her own, interrupting her musings.

Kagome turned, and stared at her previous life.

"Take care of them?"she asked softly, knowing that no one would hear.

For the first time in a long time, Kikyo smiled.

"Of course."

Their embrace, which made all of the warriors around them freeze in surprise, was long and telling. It held no warmth to those looking on, and simply seemed to be a silent contract being signed in front of them. No one said a word, and the two women separated, not looking at the other, knowing that was the last contact that the other would have with the other.

* * *

**AN: I do not own Inuyasha, as much as I'd like to. That privileged goes to the wonderful mangakai who created it, as well as the various publishers.**

**Okay, okay, I know that this is totally rushed seeming, especially after the whole slip into the future, but I could find no way to flow the story along to get it to to the point I want without doing this way... And yes, the final battle is finally upon us. Just to say, that's about twenty two chapters devoted solely for that, and the last ten are within the future, or really the present. Goodness, to think that this hundred theme drabble(not a true drabble, but close enough) is almost over makes me sad, and happy at the same time. Sad that it has to end and I won't have to write for this story-line anymore, but happy that so many people stuck with me the whole way. Thank you my fellow fanficters for reading, and thank you to those of you who reviewed so far.**

**Next Chapter; Frost(By the way, Fire or Ice?)**

**~Peace,**

**Moon Witch**

**P.S. Special shoot out to Supreme Conquest, who constantly reviews each time I update. Your too sweet, and I appreciate it =).**


	69. Frost

**Frost**

His gaze caught her's, knowing that most would see nothing in his eyes, and knowing that she saw nothing but... Warmth. The battle was beginning. He could feel it in his heating blood, but found that he could not let her go into the fray without him. Many said goodbye, some said nothing around him, and he simply let himself go to her, to the one who had melted, if only a little, the frost of his persona.

* * *

**AN: I do not own Inuyasha.**

**Okay, I just wanted to give the heads up that my laptop is kind sort-of dying on me. Don't worry, all my flies have back ups on my family's desktop, but I wanted to say that when my laptop finally kicks the bucket updates will be even slower. I'm sorry for the connivance, and thank you for reading and or reviewing my story, or stories. Next: A Moment In Time**

**~Peace,**

**Moon Witch  
**


	70. A Moment In Time

**A Moment In Time**

Just a moment. That was all it took for soft lips to descend on her's. It was clumsily, his armor a hindrance and their height difference evident. But it made something within her cry out in pure bliss, a sigh escaping past her own lips as he continued to descend kiss after kiss. His claws dug into her bare shoulders, his contended growl and purr vibrated in her ears and she felt both their aura's clash and dance against each other in a secret dance that was wild and full of something she couldn't quite name. She couldn't even begin to register how loud her mind was screaming at her that she shouldn't be doing this with him. That she had left all her ties to the point in this era that she could bare to leave them(if only just). She was not ready to accept these feelings, her mind said, not if she was going to break them as soon as she got her hands on the complete jewel, and Naruku's head was on the ground. Stop, her mind screamed, this is wrong. But her heart screamed it was right, and it sang with a wild joy that was their kisses.

And then, as soon as it had come, and as warm and wonderful as it was, the moment was over. And she heard the screams, the curses and the various declarations of death to him that had not registered in her ears before. She laughed, tears leaking out of her eyes as a new moment came from their shared moment. Sango cheered, and Miroku promptly took the advantage to steal a kiss on his own. Rin squealed, as did Shippo, and Inuyasha looked on with a furious, but accepting grimace. Jaken squawked, and the rest gaped. Kagome smiled. Part of her, wondering as she cried, whether she was crying from happiness, or from sorrow.

As a warm claw clasped her own, she found that question impossible to answer.


	71. Dangerous Territory

**Dangerous Territory**

"Come on Inuyasha, you can do better than that!"said a very smug Naraku.

Kagome, with her back against Sesshomaru, looked up to see her snarling friend clash against Naraku's body again and again, fang against grotesque flesh. Her eyes narrowed as she watched Kikyo circle, carefully, just as they had planned. She prepared to do her part, and looked over to the man who's aura clashed and intermingled in a potent and beautiful mixture with her own, his eyes blazing with the molten fire of battle, his blade swinging with precision. But those blazing eyes were focused on his younger brother, and though she could not tell with certainty, she thought she saw worry in them.

Kagome smiled bitterly, knowing she could use that to her advantage.

"Sesshomaru, go to him."she said, a whisper, hoping that he wouldn't hear her, terrified that he would.

Sesshomaru's eyes, flickered to her's, and he narrowed them.

"No."he said simply, equally as quiet, as though his answer scared him as well.

"Please, you know... You know what must be done."she said, half begging him to go, half begging him to stay.

His gaze was volcanic, and his mouth was a firm scowl in a rare show of outward emotion.

"What if I don't want that?" he said stubbornly.

It was then that Kagome acknowledged that she loved him, at least to herself. Her heart was a dangerous place to complicate at the moment, yet the truth of her love rang out to her, more so than the song of the jewel. With the fray of battle around them, the girl from the future admitted the love of the being that would probably have lost any emotion he held for her now in the five hundred years until they met again.

"Wanting isn't enough sometimes."she said simply.

He narrowed his eyes, and she wished at that moment to cry. Instead, she smiled.

"What of will?"he asked, quietly.

She looked at the face that she had come to love, the face of the man that was her ally, her friend, and finally the face of the one she loved. The one who held the strongest will, even stronger than her own.

"In time, that could work."she said, beyond any hope.

He smiled, and part of her couldn't help but sigh at the angelic expression.

"Then I will find you again Kagome. No matter how long it takes, no matter the centuries." he said, and it was a promise, and like before, Kagome knew that his word was something he never went back on.

It was as close as an 'I love you' as she would ever get from him, and for that, she, and her fragile, already breaking heart, were both very grateful. She kissed him them, not him her, for she could not allow him to surprise her again. Warmth and the emotion she now knew was love filled her, and she sighed at the euphoric sensation.

With demons dancing around in battle, their souls touched, and to both, it seemed to be the most dangerous aspect of the final battle against Naraku.


	72. Boundaries

**Boundaries**

Inuyasha had always loved passionately. He had loved her without boundaries of their species, of the danger he was in when he was near her, and of the obstacle of death. She loved him, even with this angered filled fragment of a soul. And as she set the barrier, as was her part, watching him partially destroy the very thing that had torn them apart fifty-two years again, then smash against her barrier with a yell of outrage. She could only wish as she saw her reincarnation rush forward that he would love her just as he had before, even if she was preventing keeping one of the people he loved most by his side.

"KAGOME!" he screamed, loudly, as did the others, trapped within her barriers.

Kagome did not turn, nor flinch, thought Kikyo proudly, as both their arrows hit Naraku at the same time, right between his red, glaring eyes, defeated by those he thought of the least. Eyes still full of the lust that the his human self had had when he wanted her so long ago, fading as his claws collapsed into dust around the Jewel of Four Souls. Her future walked softly, almost without a sound, her pureness, the one the Jewel called for a brilliant aura of power, swirling around and killing demons foolish enough to approach. She looked like an angel, she thought, something that she could have never achieved, the future sent back to correct the past's mistake.

Untouchable, without the a real barrier, she thought. Boundless and something that she would evolve into. She felt, as she watched her reach for the jewel, humbled by the very thought.


	73. Unsettling Revelations

**Unsettling Revelations**

"NO!"he screamed hoarsely, pounding herself against Kikyo's barrier, knowing it was in vein.

Both women were powered by the Kamis, and though the older one was weak in comparison, he knew that no matter how much he tried he would never reach Kagome in time. She was leaving, he could feel it deep in his bones, and it crushed him to see what he had thought before would come to pass. He was being left alone again... She really was breaking that sweet promise she had made when she had made two years ago. At that moment, Inuyasha both hated her, and loved her all the more


	74. Shattered

**Shattered**

Shippo could not hold back his tears as he watched the woman he called mother pick up the completed Jewel, shinning like a angel or a goddess, beautiful and terrible at the same time. He screamed, clutching Rin to his side, feeling as if his whole world had shattered, just as the jewel once had. He was losing his mother, and though he hated it, he understood it too well.

"We'll wait for her."whispered Rin, so wise beyond her years, in his ears.

He looked to the little girl beside him, and knew that no matter how much it hurt, the girl's words were true. Tears ran down her cheeks, and she clung as hard to him as he did to her.

"No matter how long."he whispered back, turning back his eyes to see what would be in store for his mother.


	75. Bitter Silence

**Bitter Silence**

They said nothing as they watched their friend, sister, take up the mantle that had been thrust upon her for two life times. How could they do anything but look past the damn spiritual barrier and cling to one another? Their hands clasped, and their hearts tangled, they knew the course of the woman in front of them, and they knew that this was her fate, since the second she first opened her wonderful eyes. It didn't mean, however, to Sango and Miroku, that they could be any less bitter about it.**  
**


	76. The True You

**The True You**

He understood her course, her path, and what her wish would cause. But, at the same time, he hated the truth that his heart screamed out to him. He was aloof, cold as ice, deadly in any sense. No emotion ever crossed him. As he watched her lithe figure bathed in that golden light, he felt that thought to be laughable. As he watched her delicate fingertips close over the shining, purified jewel, he wished to both rave and weep. He wished to pound as fiercely as Inuyasha against the barrier of the clay pot, he wished to fall to his knees as the slayer and monk had, and he wished to cling to _something_ as his Ward and her's did.

Instead, true to actual self, the one she had help form slowly, he clung to the idea of seeing her again, someday soon.


	77. Pretense

**Pretense**

For the last time, Kagome hesitated. Her eyes, somehow not blinded by the light of the jewel or herself, stayed intense all the same, focused on the tiny, insignificant small marble in her small, shinning hand. She frowned.

"_Wish to stay. Wish to stay." _shouted the jewel.

"_Please, destroy us."_whispered a soft, hoarse voice.

"_STAY. STAY."_

"_DESTROY. DESTROY."_

She shook her head. She had no reason to linger here listing to the deafening prattle of the stupid thing. To stay would only save the self-conscious jewel, and damn those she felt dear, and corrupt her, destroy her. To destroy it The jewel, in all its tempting, could not sway her... Not for long, at least. She did wish to stay. How could she not? But she understood, long ago the need to live where she was from, to be where she truly belonged. No more hesitation... Just pure action.

"I wish..."**  
**


	78. Patience

**Patience**

Five hundred and seventeen years. The last decade or two spent waiting on baited breath for her to finish the quest. And now, at the last second, Sesshomaru, for once in so long, felt his patience wearing thin with the thought of never seeing her again running through his mind. But, he knew, when she did come through, because she _would_, the wait would have been worth it.


	79. Midnight

**Midnight**

The sky was dark, and the moon was in the sky. Because of it, dark hair fell on his shoulders, with small wisps of sliver threading through. He felt tired, alone here on the roof at midnight, as he had been for many years, their wedding bands shinning both around his neck and on his finger. Kikyo had lived with him for most of time, and both had known that she was not meant to live to this midnight, and though he had hated it, as had she, they had accepted it long ago. On her death bed, she had smiled, and said softly that even if her life span, her life in general had been abnormal, she had loved and enjoyed ever moment of it.

So had he. And he did not regret, or at least not anymore, when Kagome had been born seventeen years ago. Though he had lost one love, he had gained another, though different from the last.


	80. Shadows

**Shadows**

The shadows at this time, around the well, where all those who had loved the one he had called mother gathered, were deep and dark. He frowned, fingertips twitching. Rin, soft and warm by his side, as all ways, touched his claws softly with her soft, oh so delicate human hands.

"So, we waited so long after all."she said with a giggle.

Shippo, nerves, claws sweating, remembered that fated day where they had clung to each other, still children, smiled weakly.

"It took us five hundred years to get to this point."he said, no regret in his voice at the wait, for he knew that she was worth it.

"Won't she be surprised that we grew up?"asked Rin, as nervous as him, clenching the hand that clasped his, incidentally their wedding bands, old and faded gold.

He chuckled slightly, looking at the broad of people around him, nervous as can be, looking towards the well with twitchy, impatient eyes. Their long shadows in a jumbled mess of feeling, much like the aura cloud around them.

"I think, Oka-san will be more surprise to see so many people waiting for her."he said simply, winking at his wife.

She giggled, and he chuckled happily at the thought of her beloved face.


	81. Summer Haze

**Summer Haze**

When Souta had first woken up a few days ago, incidentally the first day of summer vacation, he had not expected to see an older Inuyasha bold as brass, on his door step, grinning cheekily down at him, with a grumpy looking young guy next to him, and two giggling teenagers with wedding bands boldly on their fingers. He had been very surprised, indeed when they told him that Kagome would come home, and stay _permanently_, never to return to the past. And that they were here to wait for her. Oh, and to expect to see a whole lot more people in the next few days. To say the least, he had spent his first week of summer in a haze catering to emotional demons, half-demons, and their multiple children as they all waited for his sister. One thing was for sure, when she did come home, he would snap out of this haze, and have a strong word with her.

After he hugged her to death of course.


	82. Memories

**Memories**

"I wish for the souls involved with the Shikon Jewel no Tama to be were they were suppose to be."she simply, ignoring the ear-splitting cry that issued from the Jewel in her hand the second the words slipped passed her lips.

It then released an onslaught of energy that blinded her, the small marble sized thing in her hand growing hot and scalding as the souls of demons escaped the Jewel, their cries something terribly sad and happy at the same time. Her own soul cried along with them, feeling as though it was about to rip apart from her body, her hand still shaking and burning with the Jewel. At the same moment, she felt everything that had ever happened to her since she had fell into the well two years ago race through her mind like a film backwards. She felt his lips on her for only a brief second, and then they were gone, and then again, then the moment were she had threatened him, the moments where she met everyone dear, where she cried and sweated and bled, where she loved and she almost hated and she felt affection for. She felt all those memories course through her, and then suddenly she was what Kikyo had been, her final moments, the expression Inuyasha had made when his eyes closed, the love they had shared, her sad duty as a Miko to the Jewel, and her childhood, her fears her, hatred and her love.

She felt it all, and suddenly, Midoriko was smiling down at her. Her expression was grateful and her dark eyes filled with tears. She was more beautiful than Kagome had ever imagined her, and she was humbled by this woman's soul.

"_You heard my song._"she whispered.

She could only nod.

"_Thank you for answering it, and in a way that allows me to go to the afterlife_."she said, touching her ghostly hand on her cheek.

This time, Kagome smiled, watching as the woman disappeared with a tearful smile of her own. She heard her name called, and she turned still smiling, to the faces of those she loved in this era, feeling as though she was being carried away as they disappeared in a familiar pulse of blinding blue light.


	83. A Change In The Weather

**Change In The Weather**

When Kagome woke up, the smell of damp earth reached her nostrils, and she felt herself blink heavily at the sight above her. Gone was the clear sky, and in its stead she saw nothing but the roof of the well house, in her time, and water leaking through the cracks in the old well house. She could hear the heavy rain above, and along with that the hushed mummers of a lot of people talking, and she could only blink in confusion, lifting herself onto her elbows, faintly noticing with discomfort her bow and arrows were still slung across her back. She noted that her breathe was harsh, and that she felt over energized, as if she had been struck by lightning. Her fingers twitched, and her pupils felt as if they were dilated.

"I.. Hello?"she asked, voice hoarse.

The mummers above stopped and then she felt a tremor of auras above sweep above her, exploding with emotions like a storm unleashing itself, and then she saw a blur of someone's figure flow down the shaft of the well, and she scrambled back as it landed into a crouch beside her. She stared. His dark muddy eyes stared back. It was the man of before she thought, his inky black hair loose this time, his familiar features stark against it, and his chest was heaving, just as her's was. Without a thought, her hand, went to one of the pendants around her neck, clutching at the crescent moon that laid on her chest. The leather thong and it's empty bottle dangled blow that, and she found faintly in her mind that she would never get rid of it...

"Sesshomaru?"she said, questioning her sanity as the tall man slowly moved towards her.

He smiled, a full blown smile that made her heart strings strum and her mouth tremble.

"Kagome."he said in return, reaching her, placing a suddenly clawed hand on her cheek.

His golden eyes stared, drinking in her in completely, he ignored the catcalls from above, the protests and whatever noise the idiots above decided to make. He had waited a long time for this, he thought. And with another smile that made her breathe catch, Sesshomaru kissed Kagome soundly on the lips, with the eagerness of demon of a hundred, and the emotions each year until this point had gathered. It was the first of many. And it was a sign of the blissfulness that was to come after them.


	84. Illogical

**Illogical**

Somehow, as Kagome found in the last few lasting days of summer, slip away from her, that her life was never going to fall into a pattern of normalcy ever again. The fist few weeks were simple, undaunting events full of emotion and a lot of hugs. It seemed as if half the people she had met five hundred years ago had been waiting to see her again, and it had taken much to herd them out of the Higuashi shrine, even when she assured them that she was fine with no ill effects to her person. However, despite her protest, the ones who had become pack of the Demon Lord refused to leave her side even for a moment. It was idiotic, selfish and childish of them to follow her around as she prepared to finish school, and even more so when she wished to do something even remotely hazardous(Of which, she had told Sesshomaru again and again, bathing was _**not **_fraught with perils, and he did not need to be anywhere near her when she was doing so, she didn't care if she drowned, as he seemed to think she'd do, and like to be alone thank you very much!).

But, some part of her, she thought as she watched with a bewildered amusement as Shippo cut her steak in tiny, itty bitty pieces, loved their efforts all the same. It was stupid, selfish and childish to allow them to continue, but then again, ever since her youth, she had never been a logical, rational person. And as golden eyes glittered her way, Kagome couldn't help but squeeze his claw with her hand and enjoy the sheer illogicalness that her life had become.


	85. Only Human

**Only Human**

"I mean, really Kagome, how can you suddenly spring this on us? Your gone for almost a year because of some... What was it again? Ebola?"asked Eri, suddenly confused.

"Funny, Ji-chan told me it was a bad case of the chicken pox." said Ayumi.

"... But I thought it was tendonitis?"said Yuka.

Kagome struggle not to roll her eyes. Two years(nearly three!) and her grandfather still hadn't come up with good diseases or reasons for her absences. She suppose some things never really change.

"Well, you were sick, and also told us a while ago that you were done with the two timer, and now you're telling us you're with his _**brother**_?!"asked Eri, scandalized.

Kagome couldn't quite hide the blush that rose in her cheeks because of that. She had seriously wished she could have avoided this conversation, but, since this was the Era she would stay in, she thought she might as well tell her closest friends she was in love(not that she had said that yet) and in a relationship. She had hoped that they would have taken this whole thing much better than they were. But it seemed that this was going to harder than she thought. She sighed slightly as the girls chattered repeatedly, and saying that one fruit from the tree must be as bad as the another fruit from the same tree.

"I love Sesshomaru very much."she said softly.

All three of her girlfriends froze, and turned to her with raised brows, mouths open. She felt her cheeks flush again. But she was proud to say it, aloud it felt amazing and perfect and so many other words that she couldn't really say.

"I love him. Inuyasha was my first love and he loved me back, but he still couldn't let go of the person he loved first. I respected that and moved on. Sesshomaru was there and I fell as hard as anyone can fall... And I have a good feeling that he loves me too. He waited a long time for me." she said.

Her friends only gaped. She giggled.

"YOU LOVE HIM?!" squeaked Yuka.

Eri and Ayumi still could only gape.

"Very much."

"Are you sure about this? I mean... Love is a big word. Like isn't. Are you sure you love this guy? I mean, I know you Kagome, that's not something you say lightly. Do you really... Are you really in love? That this feeling is love?"asked Ayumi, eyes wide.

Kagome paused for one second, wondering what she should say. She did love Sesshomaru. There was no doubt to that...

"Yes. I love him very much, I mean, I'm only human and I can't offer him as much as I wish I could, but I can offer him _**me. **_And the fact that he offers himself in return? Yeah, I think that's love. If it isn't, then what is?"she said firmly.

To that, none of her friends could say a thing.


End file.
